Rare strain of salmonella reported

BOISE – Idaho is the latest state to report a case of a rare strain of salmonella related to baby chicks that are popular Easter gifts for children, with health officials in seven other states logging at least 20 such illnesses due to the bacterial infection in the past two months.

Several of the people infected in the Pacific Northwest became sick after handling chicks or being in areas where chicks were infected. In most cases, the contamination has been traced to poultry farms.

Salmonella symptoms begin 12 to 72 hours after exposure and include severe diarrhea, fever and abdominal discomfort, sometimes for four to seven days. Health officials say people are most often infected by eating with unwashed hands after coming into contact with animals that spread the contamination through feces.

Since early March, state health departments in Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado have reported 21 cases of salmonellosis, primarily among small children. No deaths are associated with the infection, although an infant in Colorado was briefly hospitalized.

Health officials warn that children, the elderly and those with weakened immune systems are most likely to become seriously ill when exposed.

“This is the fifth straight year we’ve had a cluster like this in the Northwest, so we always try to tell people chicks are not a good gift for small kids,” said Donn Moyer of the Washington Department of Health and Welfare. “It’s one of the fun things to do, to nuzzle real close to their faces – but after handling them or their environment, kids need to wash their hands to avoid contamination.”

Idaho’s case was detected from a sample that a Nez Perce County doctor sent in for testing after a patient developed a diarrhea-type illness in late March, said Tom Shanahan of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.

“We’ve only had one case and we did trace it back to a Washington state poultry hatchery,” said Shanahan.

Like six cases in Oregon and five cases in Washington of children contracting salmonella since Easter, the Idaho case was caused by a strain of the bacteria known as Salmonella Ohio. Officials declined to release the name of the Washington poultry hatchery that had been indicated as the source in most of the Northwest cases, saying state agriculture officials were still investigating.

In Colorado, where a large New Mexico poultry hatchery has been linked to a nine-case cluster outbreak covering five states, officials identified the strain as Salmonella Montevideo.