Health

More than 4,000 Danes may have salmonella

by julianw | July 2, 2008 at 01:12 pm

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Over 4, 000 Danes may be infected with salmonella and health officials haven't yet found the source of the outbreak. There is no word yet on whether Denmark's crisis is related to the contaminated- tomato-driven salmonella outbreak in the U.S.

Danish health officials fear more than 4,000 people may be infected with salmonella and are checking everything from refrigerators to credit card receipts to find the source of what may be the worst outbreak in 15 years.

Kare Moelbak of the Ministry of Health said 330 cases have been confirmed and about a quarter of those people have been hospitalized. No deaths have been reported.

He said officials at the government's center for prevention and control of infectious diseases say the real number probably exceeds 4,000 people.

Moelbak said he suspects the source is some sort of Danish food product distributed only in Denmark, since neighboring countries have not reported an outbreak. They believe it probably is meat, but they do not know which product.