A McDonald's restaurant in Bloomington, Illinois as Health officials investigate an outbreak of salmonella cases in which the victims all claim to have eaten at this particular McDonald's store.
The McLean County Health Department and the Illinois Department of Public Health are looking into the case. Health department personnel discussed the suspicions of the salmonella links to the store with the owner of the McDonalds on South Main Street in Bloomington.
The McDonald's franchise owners, Bob and Julie Dobski voluntarily closed the restaurant Wednesday night for the Thanksgiving holiday and chose not to reopen, said the county health department communications director, Kera Simon, according to Pantagraph.
Simon said that salmonella sickenings linked to the restaurant account for "a low number of cases, less than 10, but it was not a mild strain of salmonella."
"People that are sick, they know they're sick," Simon said. "They've been sick for a period of time." For about a week, these individuals have been suffering from cases of Salmonella Stanley, a rare strain that Food Safety News writes is rare outside of Southeast Asia and usually appears only in people who have traveled there.
It is still early in the investigation; however, the suspected link does not seem to be a certain food, but rather human transmission.
According to the report, McDonald's employees are being tested for salmonella and will be allowed to return to work once lab results confirm they are safe to serve food to the public.
Salmonella is an organism, which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.
