Salmonellosis cases linked to 16 Sheetz stores
Pittsburgh-AP -- The State Department of Health now says that 34 cases of salmonellosis (sal-moh-nell-OH'-sis) in 11 Pennsylvania counties have been linked to Sheetz convenience stores.
Health officials say nobody at the convenience stores is responsible for the salmonella bacteria -- which is believed to have been on tomatoes and lettuce served on deli sandwiches made at 16 Sheetz stores in the Pittsburgh area and along the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Instead, the food was likely contaminated when it came from a supplier -- which hasn't been identified.
Health officials say they expect the number of cases to increase, and they're trying to determine if some cases in West Virginia or Maryland are related to the Pennsylvania outbreak.
Salmonellosis usually isn't fatal, but can cause severe diarrhea and cramps for about three days. It can be life-threatening in serious cases, however, or if the person who has it has a weak immune system.
Sheetz operates more than 300 stores in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina. The company changed its tomato supplier and pulled tomatoes and lettuce from its stores before disinfecting them and resupplying them.
The stores don't sell the produce separately.
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Taken From: http://www.wjactv.com/news/3530723/detail.html
Salmonella Outbreak
Sheetz Incorporated Speaks Out
POSTED: 12:36 a.m. EDT July 15, 2004
At a news conference Wednesday night, Channel 6 was told Sheetz gets their roma tomatoes from an out of state supplier. Wednesday that supplier as well as the type of tomato sold has permanently changed in all of their 300 stores. Management says, out of those stores, 16 are under question for the 34 confirmed salmonella cases in Pennsylvania and those numbers are going up daily.
Officials say there is a reported case in Maryland and now the Health Department is looking at a possible case in DuBois. The first case was reported in Westmoreland County, Friday and moved East toward Bedford County.
Right now the Health Department bases their findings on food history alone. Meanwhile, Sheetz continues to do all they can to best serve their customers.
Steve Sheetz says, "The Pennsyalvania Department of Health officials have indicated to the company that the contaminant is likely to be from an external supplier and is in no way linked to improper food handling or food safety practices by Sheetz employees."
The Pennsylvania Department of Health took samples of Roma Tomatoes from Sheetz stores for testing. Results could be ready in three to five days.
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Taken From: http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-rev ... 03492.html
Illnesses traced to Sheetz
By By Karen Roebuck and Michael Hasch
Thursday, July 15, 2004
A salmonellosis outbreak that sickened at least 34 people was caused by tainted produce on deli sandwiches and salads sold at as many as 16 Sheetz convenience stores in Southwestern and south-central Pennsylvania, the state Department of Health said Wednesday.
"Sheetz kept coming up, and not just one Sheetz, but Sheetz that were spread around the state," health department spokesman Richard McGarvey said.
Sheetz customers who ate store-prepared deli sandwiches or salads between July 2 and 8 became sick. Symptoms of diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps hit 12 to 72 hours after the people were infected.
The tainted produce, possibly roma tomatoes, was packaged in individual servings by a food distributor.
"All 34 cases are the same type, which is surprising. ... That says to us it is a single-source outbreak," McGarvey said.
He said the produce was not contaminated at Sheetz.
"We didn't find any problems with cooking or hygiene in the stores," McGarvey said.
The type of salmonella identified in those who became ill is Javiana, which most often is found in fresh produce. Javiana illnesses have been associated with produce and other foods, such as chicken, and with contact with reptiles, McGarvey said.
"While we do not have final confirmation on the source at this time, we continue to take steps to ensure the safety of all products sold in our stores," company Chairman Steve Sheetz said last night at a news conference at the organization's headquarters in Altoona.
"The well-being and safety of our customers and employees is our absolute priority."
Sheetz said the company became aware of the problem Friday when state Department of Agriculture investigators went to a store in Westmoreland County.
Two or three customers who ate at the store over the Fourth of July weekend had gotten ill, investigators told the company. The investigators went to a nearby store where another person who had gotten ill had eaten over the holiday.
"The Department of Health began looking for the source and initially narrowed it down to what they felt might be lettuce or roma tomatoes," Sheetz said.
He explained that all those who became ill reported eating at Sheetz stores and having lettuce or tomatoes on their sandwiches or salads.
Sheetz stores only sell lettuce and tomatoes on items prepared by food handlers at the store. The stores do not sell produce.
Sheetz Inc. immediately replaced all lettuce and tomatoes from its approximately 300 locations in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina.
"We removed the lettuce and tomatoes, sanitized (the food preparation areas) and started all over," Sheetz said.
Although the health department is still conducting tests, the company learned yesterday that the tomatoes may be the culprit.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has linked Javiana to roma tomatoes in the past.
"Tomatoes are not a commonly recognized vehicle for salmonella," according to a CDC report on a 2002 Javiana outbreak in Florida. "However, tomatoes have been implicated in at least one previous outbreak (in 1990)."
Mike Magner, director of safety and risk for Sheetz Inc., said the company is no longer using roma tomatoes. Instead, it is using hothouse tomatoes.
Magner also said the company has found a new tomato supplier. Neither Magner nor Sheetz would identify the previous supplier, which is still providing the company with lettuce.
However, a federal official familiar with the investigation said Coronet Foods in Wheeling, W.Va., is a produce distributor to Sheetz and is being investigated by state health officials. Coronet officials did not return phone calls.
The outbreak is widespread, McGarvey said, affecting people in 11 counties: Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Westmoreland, Washington, Indiana, Franklin, Bedford, Fulton, Clearfield and Dauphin.
Three cases of salmonellosis have been reported by customers who ate at Sheetz stores in Maryland, Magner said. Some customers in West Virginia also became ill, but it is unclear if salmonellosis is to blame.
Officials at 26 hospitals in Allegheny, Westmoreland, Beaver and Butler counties said they recently treated 42 cases of salmonellosis, most in the past week. Some of those might not be related to the outbreak.
McGarvey and officials with the Allegheny County Health Department are not sure that the area's seven cases of salmonellosis diagnosed this month are connected to the outbreak.
The county's cases include a 77-year-old woman who had been hospitalized and another person believed to have contracted the infection while in Europe, said Guillermo Cole, county health department spokesman.
"We interviewed four of the seven and have not found anything in common," he said. "Ours could very well turn out to be isolated, sporadic cases" and not part of the outbreak.
People can be sick up to 10 days with salmonellosis, but the disease is rarely fatal. People with impaired immune systems or those with an infection that spreads from the intestines to the bloodstream and other parts of the body are more prone to life-threatening infections, according to the CDC.
The illness can be spread by infected food handlers who do not wash their hands properly. Thorough cooking kills the bacteria.
"Produce is typically not cooked," Cole said. "Washing does remove salmonella bacteria. I don't think the salmonella bacteria are as difficult to remove as the hepatitis A virus."
A hepatitis A outbreak in Beaver County last fall killed four people and sickened 656. It was the nation's largest hepatitis A outbreak linked to a single source and was traced by state and federal investigators to contaminated, Mexican-grown green onions served at the Beaver Valley Mall Chi-Chi's Mexican restaurant.
Javiana was the fifth most common type of salmonella to infect humans in 2002, accounting for 3.7 percent -- or 1,188 -- of the nation's 32,308 cases of salmonella that year, according to the CDC.
