Raw basil and spring mix salad may be linked to food-poisoning outbreaks that reportedly sickened more than 90 people in Illinois and Texas.
The Food and Drug Administration issued the alert late yesterday. The agency has been working with the federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to determine the source of the outbreaks. The infection can cause flu-like symptoms such as diarrhea, stomach cramps, nausea, muscle aches and fever. Signs of infection usually develop a week after a person eats contaminated food.
The FDA urged consumers who experience those symptoms after eating basil or spring mix salad products to tell their doctors and notify local health officials.
The agency says 57 people in Wheaton, Illinois and 38 people in Irving, Texas, reported getting sick in February. Twenty of these cases have been confirmed by laboratory testing to have been stricken with cyclosoriasis, the FDA said.
Food poisoning outbreaks are difficult to track down and the FDA advised anyone with cramps, vomiting and diarrhea to consider possible food poisoning.
Cyclospora infection can be treated with antibiotics, it added.
