Cyclospora total climbs to 675
The nation's Cyclospora outbreak total has risen to 675, based on an update today from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) plus additional cases in the latest update from Texas, the state reporting the most cases.
The CDC said it has received 642 reports so far (see map below), which includes 6 newly reported illnesses but excludes 10 earlier cases that were subtracted since the Sep 10 update, because new information revealed they did not meet the CDC's outbreak case definition. The CDC's latest tally doesn't include 33 of the 311 cases reported in the latest update from the Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS).
The new CDC update includes the first cases reported from Pennsylvania, which lifts the number of affected states to 25. Most cases had illness onsets ranging from mid June through mid July. The latest onset reported so far was Aug 21.
Iowa and Nebraska have reported that restaurant-linked Cyclospora cases were linked to a salad mix produced by a Taylor Farms facility in Mexico. However, the CDC said evidence so far suggests not all of the cases in all of the states are related to each other.
The CDC said it is collaborating with Texas officials to investigate cases in that state. Preliminary findings from a probe into a restaurant cluster do not show a connection to Taylor Farms' Mexico facility. It said the investigation is ongoing.
Sep 17 CDC outbreak update
Sep 11 TDSHS update
APIC report details states' CRE-tracking efforts
In conjunction with the ground-breaking report yesterday on drug-resistant microbes from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) published a summary of states that have statewide reporting of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE).
CRE, which the CDC has called "nightmare bacteria," constitute one of three pathogen classes that the CDC placed in the "urgent" category yesterday, along with drug-resistant Clostridium difficile and Neisseria gonorrhoeae. CRE have become resistant to nearly all current antibiotics and can transfer their resistance to other organisms, APIC noted in a news release.
Eleven states so far report CRE, according to APIC: Colorado, Illinois, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin. Tracking the spread of antibiotic-resistant infections is one of four core actions that the CDC proposed to combat resistant pathogens.
The APIC report summarizes how individual states are defining, tracking, and reporting CRE to their state health departments, according to APIC. The association will update the information as new data become available.
Sep 16 APIC report
Sep 16 APIC press release
FDA announces two new public FSMA meetings
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced two new public meetings on two proposed rules under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The proposed rules cover verification of foreign food suppliers and accreditation of third-party auditors and are designed to help ensure that imported foods meet the same safety standards as US-produced foods.
The meetings are the second and third in a series, the FDA said in a statement. The first meeting will be Oct 10 and 11 in Miami, and the second will be Oct 22 and 23 in Long Beach, Calif. A meeting in Washington, DC, on Sep 19 and 20 had previously been announced.
The meetings are "designed to solicit oral stakeholder and other public comments on the proposed rules, inform the public about the rulemaking process (including how to submit comments, data and other information to the rulemaking dockets), and respond to questions about the proposed rules," the FDA said.
Sep 17 FDA statement
