The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added Georgia, Tennessee and Texas to the list of states linked to the iceberg lettuce cyclosporiasis outbreak, widening the map of a foodborne illness that has now been detected in 48 states plus Washington, DC since May.
The latest update lands as the CDC reported 17,180 laboratory-confirmed cases on Aug. 25, along with at least 11,841 additional non-laboratory-confirmed cases. Michigan's health department, which has been tracking the outbreak closely, reported 14,510 cases on Aug. 27 and identified the first two deaths in the nationwide outbreak.
That puts the scale of the illness far beyond what most people would expect from a single produce-linked event. The FDA traced the largest outbreak to recalled iceberg lettuce grown by Taylor Farms in central Mexico, and by Aug. 27 at least 11,458 cases had been confirmed as part of the lettuce-related outbreak. Nearly 500 hospitalizations have been associated with the illnesses, showing how quickly a parasite linked to produce can move through the food supply and into emergency rooms.
But the CDC's own update leaves one important boundary in place. The agency said the states linked to the lettuce outbreak are the only ones it has confirmed as related to one another, even as it investigates multiple separate clusters of gastrointestinal illness nationwide. It also said the case count trails state-by-state reporting by about six weeks, which means the national total is still catching up to what health departments are seeing on the ground.
Cyclosporiasis is caused by the parasite Cyclospora cayetanensis and is usually contracted through contaminated food or water. That long lag makes the search for a source harder than with some other foodborne illnesses, and it helps explain why the CDC can expand the outbreak map before it can fully close the case. For now, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas are the newest additions to a list that keeps growing while the exact contamination point in the lettuce supply chain remains unresolved.
