DATE: July 23, 2018
LOCATION: Various states
DETAILS: CDC and public health and regulatory officials in several states are investigating a multistate outbreak of Salmonella Reading infections linked to raw turkey products. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS) is monitoring the outbreak.
Public health investigators are using the PulseNet system to identify illnesses that may be part of this outbreak. PulseNet is the national subtyping network of public health and food regulatory agency laboratories coordinated by CDC.
DNA fingerprinting is performed on Salmonella bacteria isolated from ill people by using techniques called pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and whole genome sequencing (WGS).
CDC PulseNet manages a national database of these DNA fingerprints to identify possible outbreaks. WGS gives a more detailed DNA fingerprint than PFGE. WGS performed on Salmonella from ill people in this outbreak showed that they are closely related genetically. This means that the ill people are more likely to share a common source of infection.
As of July 11, 90 people infected with the outbreak strain of S. Reading have been reported from 26 states.
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