VALDOSTA —
A 5-year-old Lowndes County girl has been diagnosed with salmonella poisoning, the first reported case in Georgia following an outbreak across 20 states in the Midwest, the South, and elsewhere, according to the Georgia Department of Health Wednesday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have identified cantaloupe from a farm in southwestern Indiana as the source of a strain of salmonella typhimurium that has infected 141 persons, the CDC stated in a press release.
The vendor of the cantaloupe has notified its distributors and will withdraw the fruit from the marketplace, according to the CDC. Consumers are discouraged from buying any cantaloupe carrying an Indiana label.
Specific information on the Lowndes County child was not released, but she was not hospitalized and is at home doing well, said Courtney Sheeley, South Health District public information officer.
While the CDC is calling the list of incidents of infection an “outbreak,” salmonella is not contagious, Sheeley said.
“They’re calling it an outbreak because it has affected so many people,” Sheeley said. “We only have one person infected in Georgia, and we hope it stays that way.”
Because cantaloupe is grown on the ground, it has a likelihood of carrying salmonella and other bacteria on its skin, according to the CDC website. Consumers who don’t wash the fruit thoroughly with a produce brush can spread salmonella from the skin of the fruit to the center when they cut into it.
Salmonella infections can range in severity, Sheeley said, with the elderly, children and people with impaired immune systems at the highest risk of severe symptoms.
“Salmonella is one of those illnesses that you can have and possibly be sick for a day and never go to the doctor as it passes through your system,” Sheeley said. “Or it can get bad enough to where you have to be hospitalized. It depends on who gets it.”
Symptoms of salmonella include diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal cramps and fever. Many times, victims of the disease report flu-like symptoms, Sheeley said. Victims who are hospitalized usually have difficulty retaining fluids from severe diarrhea and vomiting.
This particular strain, salmonella typhimurium, is no more dangerous than any other type of salmonella, according to District Epidemiologist January Smith. It has the same symptoms as other common strains including salmonella enteriditis. Both are the most common types of salmonella.
“These things happen from time to time,” Sheeley said of the outbreak. “We have a good system that picks up on this. It’s not something that I’m worried about.”
Every case of salmonella reported is entered into a statewide database, and numerous cases or disease patterns are tracked back to their source so the outbreak can be stopped, Sheeley said.
For more information, visit the CDC’s website, www.cdc.gov.
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