Salmonella Outbreak due to Recalled Honey Smacks Continues to Grow

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had updated the investigation related to Salmonella outbreak linked to Honey Smacks cereal. CDC advises consumers and retailers not to eat, serve, or sell any Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal, which is linked to a Salmonella outbreak and continues to make people sick. Although Kellogg recalled the cereal on June 14, 2018, the cereal continues to make people sick. The FDA reports that the recalled Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal is still being sold in some locations, despite the recall earlier this summer. Since the last update on July 12, 2018, 30 more illnesses have been reported due to outbreak strain of Salmonella Mbandaka, bringing the total to 130 cases from 36 states with 34 people hospitalized. Since the cereal has a shelf-life of one year it still might be in many houses pantries. People who recently became ill report eating Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal that they had in their homes. In interviews, 61 (77%) of 79 people specifically reported eating Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal. Ill people in this outbreak reported this cereal more often than any other cereals or food items. After the initial recall, the Kellogg Co. reported it distributed the implicated cereal to foreign countries of Netherlands Antilles also known as Aruba/Curaçao/Saint Maarten; the Bahamas; Barbados; Tortola also known as British Virgin Islands; Costa Rica; Guatemala; Haiti; Mexico, Panama; and Tahiti also known as French Polynesia. Neither government officials nor the Kellogg Co. has released the name of the contractor that produced the recalled cereal for Kellogg. @ https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2018/s0904-salmonella-outbreak-honey-smacks.html