CDC Warns of ‘Super’ Salmonella in Beef, Cheese

THURSDAY, Aug. 22, 2019 (HealthDay News) — An antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella is sickening people who eat contaminated beef and unpasteurized soft Mexican cheese, U.S. health officials warned Thursday.

First seen in 2017, this bacterial strain has already caused 255 Americans in 32 states to become ill, and many more cases are expected.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has pinpointed the source to contaminated beef from U.S. sources and soft Mexican cheese, which suggests that cattle in both countries are infected.

“The resistant strains developed in animals, and those strains can then be transmitted to humans,” explained lead researcher Dr. Ian Plumb, a CDC medical epidemiologist.

Giving lots of antibiotics to cattle and people is why antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria develop.

“I think that the use of antibiotics in cattle could affect humans,” Plumb said. Being more careful about how antibiotics are used in farm animals and humans is the only way to curb antibiotic-resistant bacteria from developing.

This latest strain of salmonella is resistant to two commonly prescribed antibiotics, namely azithromycin and ciprofloxacin, the CDC found.

Among the 255 patients, 60 were hospitalized and two died, Plumb said. The patients who died had other illnesses, but salmonella was a factor in their deaths, he said.

For most people, salmonella causes bouts of diarrhea that can last for several days, but they don’t need antibiotics, Plumb said. For some, however, especially those with chronic medical problems, salmonella can become serious and require hospitalization.

It’s highly likely that many more cases of salmonella caused by this strain have occurred and have not been reported, Plumb said. Also, he expects that the number of cases will grow.

“We underestimate the number of salmonella infections out there, and it’s quite possible that there were many more cases that for whatever reason didn’t make it to the local public health departments, and that’s what we expect,” he said.

Plumb said that the CDC wasn’t able to hone in on any particular brands of beef, but the agency suspects that this strain of salmonella will continue to spread among cattle.