Oyster Salmonella Outbreak Grows as Virginia Counts 55 Sick

Virginia health officials have counted 55 people in 19 states sick with Salmonella Telelkebir after eating raw oysters harvested from the Little Wicomico River, nearly double the 27 illnesses in 12 states reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Virginia Department of Health released the higher tally on Oct. 21, up from 53 in 18 states a week earlier, in the ongoing oyster Salmonella outbreak linked to a single Virginia grower. Five patients required hospitalization and no deaths were reported, according to Food Safety News, which cited the CDC's Oct. 19 report.

Investigators connected the illnesses through patient interviews and oyster harvest tags. Of 13 people asked about their food exposure, 10 said they had eaten raw oysters before becoming ill. Traceback records existed for seven patients, and oysters from the Little Wicomico River were the only product all seven had in common. That pointed to the Little Wicomico Oyster Company of Heathsville, Virginia, which sells under dealer certification VA-1421-SP.

The company voluntarily recalled its oysters on Oct. 9, covering whole shellstock harvested between Sept. 18 and Oct. 8 from the Little Wicomico River and the Little Wicomico River Lower growing areas. Virginia closed the river to oyster and clam harvesting the same day, and it remains shut. The Virginia health department says illness onsets stretched from late May through Oct. 6, with the most recent case falling inside the recall harvest window. All of the patients counted by the CDC ate oysters harvested before that window, and their illnesses began between May 29 and Sept. 14.

Recalled oysters sold under another name

Some of the recalled oysters kept reaching shoppers after the recall, under a different label. According to the Georgia Department of Agriculture, Publix sold the recalled oysters as "James River Oysters," with purchase dates from Sept. 27 through Oct. 14. The agency flagged the mislabeled sales on Oct. 15. Publix is the only retailer any agency has publicly named, and the Little Wicomico Oyster Company has posted nothing about the recall on its own website.

The FDA's advisory says the oysters reached restaurants and retailers in 15 states and Washington, D.C., and warns they may have been distributed further. Pennsylvania has the highest patient count, with eight infections, followed by New York with four and Virginia with three, according to CDC figures reported by healthandme. The outbreak follows another recent shelf scare: Great Value fruit cocktail cans were pulled over lead contamination. Federal officials stress that risky oysters give no warning: "Food containing Salmonella may look, smell, and taste normal," the FDA says.

The company has stopped harvesting from the affected stretch of the river and is cooperating with investigators, while oysters harvested from other Virginia growing areas fall outside the recall. Restaurants and oyster bars receive shipments with harvest tags, so anyone who ate raw oysters in the affected states this fall can ask the restaurant where its oysters came from, according to the traceback guidance used in the investigation.

The real toll is probably far higher

Both official tallies almost certainly undercount the outbreak. The CDC estimates that for every confirmed Salmonella patient, 29 others go undetected, because many people recover without medical care or testing. It also takes three to four weeks for a stool culture to be sequenced and matched to an outbreak strain, so illnesses from recent weeks may not appear in either count yet.

Salmonella infection typically causes diarrhea, fever, abdominal cramps, nausea and vomiting, and symptoms can begin within six hours of exposure. Anyone holding recalled oysters should throw them away or return them; restaurants and retailers should not serve or sell them. The outbreak is unfolding alongside other health stories this week, including Nigeria's first confirmed Ebola case.

The probe began after health officials in Pennsylvania established an epidemiological association between the illnesses and consumption of oysters from the affected Virginia growing areas, according to the FDA. Virginia lists the recalled oysters as distributed across Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Texas, with the FDA's safety alert adding California and warning the oysters may have reached other locations.

For oyster lovers, officials say the safest move is heat: cooking to an internal temperature of 145 degrees kills Salmonella and other pathogens, because oysters filter large volumes of water and can concentrate bacteria from their surroundings.