Romaine lettuce linked to an nationwide E.coli outbreak has claimed four more lives, bringing the total to five with another 197 people sickened across 35 states.
Food and Drug Administration officials said that romaine lettuce on sale now is safe to eat, with the tainted lettuce from the Yuma, Arizona region having already been processed out and replaced by lettuce grown in California.
According to a blog post on the agency's website, "Any contaminated product from the Yuma growing region has already worked its way through the food supply and is no longer available for consumption. So any immediate risk is gone.”
Investigators are still working to identify the source of the contamination. Officials say while they have been able to trace the region where the lettuce came from, they are still looking for the exact source of it. Processing plants, harvesting equipment, and the water supply are all being looked at as possible
The Center for Disease Control said that some of the patients who became ill had not eaten the lettuce themselves, but rather had been in contact with those who had.
This particular strain of e.coli was especially virulent. Patients who became sick experienced symptoms around three to four days after consuming the tainted produce and most recover within a week. However, some patients became so ill, they needed to be hospitalized with 26 developing a type of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome.
The last reported illness was on May 12.
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