The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention has warned that a salmonella outbreak spanning six states is linked to Papa Murphy’s cookie dough. A minimum of 18 cases have been reported, two of which are hospitalizations according to the CDC.
Washington state has the most cases with six, while Oregon and Idaho both have four. The patients’ age ranges from 14 to 68-years-old.
There have been no deaths connected to eating the cookie dough, CBS Detroit reports. The CDC said: “The true number of sick people in this outbreak is likely much higher than the number reported, and the outbreak may not be limited to the states with known illnesses.
Read more: More than one in three Brits have argued – about biscuits, research finds
“This is because many people recover without medical care and are not tested for Salmonella.”
14 of the patients have been interviewed by health officials about the food they ate in the week prior to them getting sick.
The CDC say 12 of the 14 say ate Papa Murphy’s products recently. But nine of the 12 have said they consumed raw chocolate chip cookie dough or raw S’mores bars dough – and one of the patients ate baked cookies made with the chocolate chip dough.
It was not specified by the CDC if the cookie dough the final two patients interviewed consumed was raw or baked. The raw chocolate chip cookie dough and raw S’mores bars dough has been temporarily taken off shelves by Papa Murphy’s.
The company has said that while some companies sell cookie dough safe for raw consumption, Papa Murphy’s chocolate chip cookies dough and S’mores bares dough are not supposed to be eaten raw. Anyone who is in possession of the products have been asked to throw them away by the CDC.
The CDC’s “Say No to Raw Dough” advisory was updated in April, warning that eating raw dough can cause both salmonella and E.coli infections. The CDC say that 1.35 million infections, 26,500 hospitalizations and 420 deaths are caused by salmonella bacteria each year.
Symptoms include diarrhoea, fever and stomach cramps, and can start six hours to six days following infection for a duration of four to seven days.
