Highlights
•A strain of Salmonella Newport caused reoccurring human infections and two outbreaks associated with ground beef.
•There were over 100 illnesses for each outbreak (106 in outbreak 1 and 436 in outbreak 2), which is unusual for ground beef outbreaks.
•The investigations prompted a government-industry collaboration on innovative methods of obtaining shopper history. Shopper history best practices and success stories are highlighted in an article on the Association of Food and Drug Officials webpage.
What Happened?
From 2016 to 2019, in collaboration with public health partners, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) investigated two Salmonella Newport outbreaks:
•The majority of reported ill people lived in the Southwestern area of the United States.
•The analyzed isolates did not show any predicted antimicrobial resistance.
•At least 80% of the ill people had eaten ground beef in the week before illness. At least one ground beef sample tested positive for Salmonella Newport and was closely related by whole genome sequencing (WGS) to clinical isolates.
•Ill people reported eating or possibly eating undercooked ground beef.
FoodWorld 