Health officials confirm 6 cases of salmonella in El Paso

El Paso health officials confirmed six cases of salmonella that could be linked to an outbreak in several states.

All six patients had to be hospitalized but have since recovered, City of El Paso Department of Public Health said a news release.

The department said it can’t confirm whether a specific food or food establishment in the El Paso cases are associated with a national outbreak involving cucumbers.

“The tests to confirm a relationship to an outbreak use a ‘DNA fingerprint’ to identify the same type of bacteria,” said Fernando Gonzalez, lead epidemiologist. “It then takes the hard work by our epidemiology case investigators to pinpoint what the cases have in common in order to determine a source”

Case investigators currently are interviewing patients to see what they have eaten over the past several days; they will ask residents who have become ill and who may be infected to prepare a food journal of what they had eaten in the days leading up to their first symptoms.

The process can be challenging as recall can be spotty, officials said.

Most people infected with salmonella develop diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps. These symptoms usually appear 12 to 72 hours after exposure. A clinical specimen such as a stool or blood sample is used to diagnose the disease, but further testing is not unusual. The disease can last between four days to a week and most will recover without treatment.

So far 341 people have been infected with the salmonella outbreak strain in 30 states. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 70 patients have been hospitalized and two deaths have been reported, including one in Texas.