MORGANTOWN – As of noon Friday, the Monongalia County Health Department said there are six known local cases, and one hospitalization, involving cyclosporiasis, the parasitic infection causing explosive diarrhea and other symptoms across much of the county.
That’s up from two cases reported by MCHD earlier this week.
National reporting from the Associated Press indicates federal health officials have identified lettuce from Mexico served at Taco Bell locations across five states – West Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana – as a source of the outbreak.
The chain said it has indefinitely removed the lettuce sourced from the supplier from its restaurants.
That said, Monongalia County Health Officer Dr. Brian Huggins said initial investigations don’t show an apparent link between Taco Bell and the local cases.
“They are saying it looks like it’s linked to that shredded lettuce. The problem is that there are multiple cases that have no food history of Taco Bell,” he said. “The last time I talked to my team, of the cases that we have locally, it didn’t seem like there was a strong link to Taco Bell. So that pretty much means it’s in other sources as well. So it’s likely not Taco Bell that’s the problem, it’s the lettuce. So that distributor probably has distributed lettuce to other people. I think as they track this down, what they’ll hopefully be able to figure out is, well, exactly what lettuces were involved, and can we track where those shipments went to try to isolate it.”
Huggins referenced the reports linking the outbreak to lettuce from a particular source.
“From what I understand, if this one distributor does end up being the one, they distribute not only to restaurants, but they also distribute to grocery stores,” he said.
In the meantime, Huggins said thoroughly washing fruits and vegetables is always a good practice, though not 100% effective in removing the cyclospora parasite.
“The 100% solution would be cooking it to 150 degrees, but how many people are cooking lettuce? Probably not that many, right?,” he said. “So, if people want to be completely safe, I would avoid iceberg lettuce until we know what this actually is and it’s kind of calmed down. But I also don’t want to give the false impression that it’s just iceberg lettuce, because right now they just don’t know that 100%. They’re still working on it. It’s a very cumbersome process.”
Huggins said individuals who are diagnosed with cyclosporiasis locally, should expect a call from the health department.
“We’re going to ask a lot of questions. So we just want people to be patient with us, because figuring out where this is coming from tends to require a lot of questions, and we would hope that people would be supportive of that.”
Ultimately, he said, cyclosporiasis poses a relatively low risk to a healthy immune system and is easily treated with an antibiotic.
“For almost everyone, the concern ultimately should be relatively low, just from the standpoint that there are not very many deaths associated with this disease. Cyclospora is a parasite, but most people will get some watery diarrhea that comes and goes,” he said. “It’s very easily treated by an antibiotic and it really doesn’t lead to, in a healthy immune system, any true significant morbidity or mortality or anything like that. So, in the grand scheme of diseases, if you get it, it isn’t going to be pleasant, but it won’t be the end of the world.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 1,645 confirmed cases and another 5,100 suspected cases across 34 states between May 1 and July 14. That’s up from 249 cases during that timeframe last year.
Of the confirmed cases, 141 individuals were hospitalized and there have been no reported deaths, according to the CDC.
