Salmonella outbreak tied to pistachio cream sickens people in 2 states

News brief

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on June 13 announced a Salmonella Oraneinburg outbreak linked to pistachio cream that has so far sickened four patients in two states, Minnesota and New Jersey. One of the patients was hospitalized.

Pistachio cream is a sweet spread that typically contains pistachios, sugar, and oil.

Illness onsets range from March 10 to May 19, and PulseNet, the nation’s database of foodborne illness DNA fingerprints, showed that samples from the sick patients were closely genetically related. Interviews with patients about what they ate in the week before they got sick revealed that all reported pistachio cream, three of them at the same restaurant.

Samples from restaurant matched outbreak strain

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture tested pistachio cream from the restaurant where sick people reported eating. Whole genome sequencing revealed that the Salmonella in the pistachio cream was closely related to the bacteria from sick people.

The CDC urged retailers, restaurants, and distributors that bought Emek brand pistachio cream to not sell, serve, or distribute a specific lot of the product. In an investigation update, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the pistachio cream was produced in Turkey and imported into the United State. The agency is investigating whether other lots or products made by the company are impacted.

H5N1 avian flu infects a fifth patient in Cambodia

News brief

Lisa Schnirring

Cambodia’s health ministry has reported the country’s fifth human H5N1 avian flu case of the year. The patient is a 65-year-old woman who had no known contact with poultry, according to an official post on its Facebook page translated and posted by Avian Flu Diary, an infectious disease news blog.

backyard poultry — Larisa Shpineva/iStock

Her infection was confirmed by the Pasteur Institute in Cambodia on May 12, and she is still receiving medical care. The woman is from Takeo province in the far southern part of the country.

One of her neighbors owns 10 chickens, but no deaths or illnesses were reported in the flock.

Earlier cases this year were all fatal

Cambodia’s four earlier cases this year were all fatal. The last was reported in late May, in an 11-year-old boy from Kampong Speu province in the south central region.

The country has been experiencing a rise in human H5N1 infections since late 2023. Some have been linked to a novel reassortment between an older 2.3.2.1c clade known to circulate in Southeast Asia's poultry and genes from the newer 2.3.4.4b clade spreading globally. So far, it's not known what clade infected the woman or the boy.