Friday the CDC updated its ongoing reporting of a Salmonella outbreak linked to baby chickens and ducks.  Now a total of 300 persons infected with the outbreak strains of Salmonella Infantis,Salmonella Newport, or SalmonellaHadar have been reported from 42 states and Puerto Rico. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows:  Alabama (8), Arizona (2), Arkansas (3), California (3), Colorado (5), Connecticut (1), Florida (1), Georgia (16), Idaho (4), Illinois (5), Iowa (3), Indiana (4), Kansas (1), Kentucky (11), Maine (9), Maryland (3), Massachusetts (1), Michigan (1), Minnesota (1), Mississippi (2), Missouri (1), Montana (3), Nebraska (3), New Hampshire (3), New Jersey (2), New Mexico (2), New York (30), North Carolina (28), Ohio (24), Oregon (1), Pennsylvania (29), Puerto Rico (1), South Carolina (6), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (17), Texas (2), Utah (1), Vermont (7), Virginia (25), Washington (8), West Virginia (18) Wisconsin (1), and Wyoming (1).

31% of ill persons have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported.

Epidemiologic, laboratory, and traceback findings have linked this outbreak of humanSalmonella infections to contact with chicks, ducklings, and other live poultry from Mt. Healthy Hatcheries in Ohio.  80% of ill people reported contact with live poultry in the week before their illness began.

Findings of multiple traceback investigations of live baby poultry from homes of ill persons have identified Mt. Healthy Hatcheries in Ohio as the source of chicks and ducklings. This is the same mail-order hatchery that has been associated with multiple outbreaks of Salmonella infections linked to live poultry in past years, including in 2012 and 2013.