N.M. Chicken Hatchery Linked to Nationwide Salmonella Outbreak

A salmonella outbreak which has sickened more than 300 people in the US since March has been linked to a hatchery in New Mexico that sells live baby chickens, ducks and other poultry by mail, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Monday.

Privett Hatchery in Portoles, N.M. has been identified as a source of the outbreak of human Salmonella Typhimurium which has infected 316 people in 37 states.

There have been 51 hospitalizations linked to this strain of salmonella; those who became ill reported symptoms between March 4 and July 28. The outbreak has affected people of all ages, from as old as 87 to less than one year, but 59 percent of infections have occurred in persons 10 years old or younger. Almost all of the people infected reported coming into contact with live poultry before becoming ill, the CDC reported. It is likely that the children played with or handled the baby birds and did not wash their hands afterward.

The CDC said people should thoroughly wash their hands after touching live poultry or anything in the area where they roam. The department also said live poultry should not be allowed inside the home.

It is possible that more than one hatchery could have been the source of the outbreak. Investigations revealed that the sickened people had purchased baby poultry at 113 feed store locations, which ordered live poultry from one of 18 mail order hatcheries across multiple states. However, a common industry practice called drop shipping makes it difficult to determine the precise source of the all the poultry in question. Drop shipping is when one hatchery cannot fill a customer's order so it calls upon another hatchery to ship the order under the first hatchery's name.

"Customers might not realize that the actual source of the purchased birds was a different hatchery than the one where the original order was placed," the CDC said.

Reports of this strain of salmonella have been reported across the US and on both coasts. Colorado has reported the most cases, 37, followed by Texas with 32. Washington state and New Mexico each reported the third highest occurrences at 19 cases.