US company recalls ground beef on fears of salmonella contamination

For the second time this year, a company in the US has been constrained to recall thousands of pounds of ground beef with a drug-resistant strain of salmonella contamination. 

Beef Packers Inc, owned by Cargill, and based in Fresno, California announced the recall on Friday of 22,723 pounds of ground beef products sent to stores in Arizona and New Mexico. 

The Arizona Department of Health Services associated two illnesses to the ground beef made at the Beef Packers plant on 23 September. According to the US Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service, the beef was repackaged into consumer-size packages and sold under different retail brand names. 

According to retailer Safeway, the recall affects ground beef sold at its stores in Arizona and from one outlet in Gallup, N M. A spokesman for the company said the product was no longer in stores and urged customers to check all ground beef with them and discard any with 'sell by' dates of 28 September to 11 October. 

The company had earlier recalled about 826,000 pounds of ground beef contaminated with salmonella Newport, the same strain responsible for the current recall. At the time of the August recall, at least 39 persons had taken ill. 

Infections from the strain can be life-threatening, especially to young children, the elderly and people with weak immune systems and symptoms can include diarrhea, fever, cramps and vomiting and as the strain is resistant to antibiotics, the risk of hospitalisation is higher. Additional symptoms may be chills, headache, and nausea, that may last up to seven days.