On Monday, The Food and Drug Administration announced it had finally found a Mexico-grown jalapeño pepper with the Saintpaul strain of salmonella. The discovery occured at Agricola Zaragoza, a distributor in McAllen, Texas.
The vegetables were being shipped to Georgia and Texas in plastic crates and bags with no labels and brand names.
Although this is considered to be a real breakthrough and, in a way, a reward for the efforts made so far, the find only confirms that investigators are on the right track; the source of contamination has yet to be identified. It could have started in Mexico, at the farm where the pepper came from, or anywhere else along the distribution chain.
The company is now recalling all the shipments of vegetables that have passed through its warehouse.
According to the New York Times, Robert Tauxe, food safety chief at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said new cases were still being reported and he and his colleagues believed the situation was not over yet.
The outbreak was said to be slowing down these days, despite the fact that 14 new cases were reported since July 18. Up to this point, as found in CDC data, 1,251 sickened people were reported in 43 states; more than 228 had to be hospitalized.
Following the announcement of the discovery, health officials have issued a warning to all consumers to avoid jalapeños; the only types of peppers which are allowed are those that have been cooked or pickled. Last week, the warning was only targeting high risk consumers, the young and the old.
Everyone is paying attention to the advice health officials give. Robert Keane, spokesman for Stop & Shop supermarkets, said all FDA warnings, like the one released on Monday, appear on the company’s website, so that all customers can see them.
Last week, reports of slow jalapeño pepper imports from Mexico were brought forward. As the tests performed by the FDA were taking too long, entire stocks of peppers started to rot before they could be commercialized. Given the newly found information, the testing is very likely to intensify even more. Some importers have already temporarily stopped the vegetable’s shipping.
The salmonella problem was first associated to tomatoes. On June 7, a warning was issued in order to prevent people from eating certain types of red raw tomatoes. It took health officials ten days to realize tomatoes were not the source of the salmonella infection but, by then, it was a bit too late for a lot of vegetable shipments. It was estimated that tomato-related industry losses have amounted to no less than $250 million.
Up to this point, no estimations with regard to peppers have been put together. Hopefully, with yesterday’s discovery, things will start moving much faster and investigators will get to the bottom of the outbreak before such incredible losses are reached again.
The disease the Salmonella bacteria brings is know as salmonellosis; its usual symptoms are diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps. Depending on the physical state of the person, the illness can last from four to seven days; people don’t usually go to doctors for getting treatment.
