The US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) issues public health alert for salad with chicken and ham.
On Friday, the FSIS issued a public health alert for ready-to-eat (RTE) fresh salad products with chicken and ham that contain lettuce that the FDA regulates and is recalled for possible Listeria contamination. These items were shipped to retail locations in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.
This action was done out of an abundance of caution. There have been no reports of adverse reactions due to consumption.
The specific fresh salads with chicken and ham were produced on various dates from March 10, through March 24. The following products are subject to the public health alert:
Marked on these products, consumers should look inside the USDA mark of inspection the following establishment numbers:
As a reminder to the general public and clinicians, eating contaminated with L monocytogenes can cause listeriosis, a serious infection that primarily affects older adults, persons with weakened immune systems, and pregnant women and their newborns. Less commonly, persons outside these risk groups are affected.
“Listeria can cause fever and diarrhea similar to other foodborne germs, but this type of Listeria infection is rarely diagnosed. Symptoms in people with invasive listeriosis, meaning the bacteria has spread beyond the gut, depend on whether the person is pregnant,” the CDC writes on its website.
Listeria is diagnosed with a bacterial culture and treated with antibiotics.