MOUNT PLEASANT, New York — As if the spread of COVID-19 was not enough to worry about, an outbreak of Listeria, or Listeria monocytogenes, inflected people in 17 states, including the states of New York, New Jersey, and Florida. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, traced the outbreak to enoki mushrooms grown in […]
Enoki mushroom listeria outbreak
MOUNT PLEASANT, New York — As if the spread of COVID-19 was not enough to worry about, an outbreak of Listeria, or Listeria monocytogenes, inflected people in 17 states, including the states of New York, New Jersey, and Florida. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, traced the outbreak to enoki mushrooms grown in South Korea by produced by Sun Hong Foods. The CDC said that it would continue to pursue the source of the Listeria outbreak, according to an article appearing in the Mount Pleasant Daily Voice. The CDC says that people should avoid eating enoki mushrooms if they purchased them before any recalls were announced by the CDC.
Listeria is a deadly pathogen. The disease spreads when food contaminated with the bacteria is consumed by someone. Listeria can cause a deadly infection in people who are vulnerable to bacterial attacks, such as people with weakened immune systems, along with women who are pregnant, newborn children, and folks aged 65 or older. Notwithstanding, people who are otherwise healthy or do not fall within an at-risk population could fall ill from the bacterial infection.
According to the CDC, 36 people became sick after eating enoki mushrooms. Among those people, 30 required hospitalization, and four of those people died.
The food poisoning from this Listeria outbreak infected people in 17 states. Those states included New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Florida, California, Hawaii, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Arizona, and Nevada.
In most states, only one person fell ill with this strain of Listeria. The CDC says that three to four people fell sick in states such as New York, Florida, and Virginia. Listeria sickened nine people in California. The people who died lived in three out of the 17 states affected by this outbreak.
Anyone who purchased enoki mushrooms from Sun Hung Foods with the UPC number 7426853 625810 must discard the food right away.
