Yellowfin tuna may be Salmonella source

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ATLANTA, April 26 (UPI) -- U.S. health officials, after combining the Salmonella Bareilly and Salmonella Nchanga investigations, said the source may be a raw yellowfin tuna product.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said collaborative investigation efforts of state, local and federal public health agencies indicated a frozen raw yellowfin tuna product known as Nakaochi Scrape, from Moon Marine USA Corp., is the likely source of this Salmonella outbreak.

The CDC said the 200 people infected with the outbreak strains of Salmonella Bareilly or Salmonella Nchanga came from 21 states and the District of Columbia.

Laboratories of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration identified Salmonella in two samples of Nakaochi scrape yellowfin tuna with a PFGE pattern indistinguishable from the Salmonella Bareilly strain associated with the outbreak. One of the samples also yielded another type of Salmonella with a PFGE pattern indistinguishable from the cluster of Salmonella Nchanga infections, the CDC said.

Consumers should not eat the recalled product and retailers should not serve the recalled raw Nakaochi Scrape tuna product from Moon Marine USA Corp., the CDC advised.

The investigation is ongoing and public health partners are continuing surveillance to identify new cases.

Twenty-eight people were hospitalized but no deaths were reported, the CDC said.