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FRIDAY, Feb. 23 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. health officials have confirmed the presence of salmonella bacteria in peanut butter jars involved in a nationwide recall last week.
As the official count of those sickened rose to 329 in 41 states, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported late Thursday that "product testing has confirmed the presence of the outbreak strain of Salmonella Tennessee in opened jars of peanut butter, obtained from ill persons."
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The CDC reported that 51 of the 249 patients for whom clinical information is available were hospitalized and that there are no deaths. However, news reports Friday said a Pennsylvania family had filed a wrongful-death lawsuit Wednesday claiming an elderly woman had died after eating tainted peanut butter.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration continues to warn consumers not to eat any Peter Pan peanut butter purchased since May 2006 and not to eat Wal-Mart house brand Great Value peanut butter with a product code beginning with 2111 purchased since May 2006.
Both brands with that code were made in a Sylvester, Ga., plant run by ConAgra Inc. of Omaha, Neb.
And four jars of both, according to the CDC, tested positive for salmonella.
Opened jars from people who were sickened in New York, Oklahoma and Iowa tested positive for salmonella, Dave Daigle, a spokesman for the CDC told the Associated Press.
"Now the question becomes, how did the salmonella get in the jar," Daigle added.
A spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Health said the state had recovered seven peanut butter jars from 11 cases confirmed by the state, and had found salmonella in at least one, AP reported.
And in Iowa, a Department of Health spokesman said there was a positive match in one of the state's six confirmed cases.
Gary Rodkin, chief executive of ConAgra, issued a news release Thursday saying that the company will take "all reasonable steps to remedy the situation."
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