A person in New York has died and 17 people from four states were sickened from a salmonella outbreak linked to kosher chicken from the largest kosher poultry producer in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. The C.D.C., which investigated the outbreak, said eight people were hospitalized, and cases of the illness were reported in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. The outbreak started in September 2017 and the last case was reported in June 2018. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and Empire Kosher Poultry, Inc., issued a public health alert on Friday “out of an abundance of caution due to concerns.”Several of the people sickened reported eating kosher chicken from Empire Kosher, and the strain was also identified in two facilities, one of which processes the company’s chicken, the C.D.C. On its website, Empire Kosher says it “is the largest producer of kosher poultry in the United States.”

Source: New York Times August 29, 2018 18:27 UTC