This site contains information about disease outbreaks and control activities conducted by the Wisconsin Division of Public Health and partners at the local, tribal, state and federal levels.

E. coli O157:H7 linked to in-the-shell hazelnuts (February 2011)

In February 2011 the Wisconsin Division of Public Health, in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP), health and agriculture officials in Minnesota, Michigan and California, and federal officials from the CDC and FDA, began investigating a multistate cluster of seven cases of E. coli O157:H7 infection (WI=3, MN=3, MI=1) with the same DNA fingerprint. Dates of illness onsets ranged from late December 2010 to late January 2011. All seven cases reported eating in-the-shell hazelnuts. Product trace-backs determined that the hazelnuts associated with all seven cases came from a common California supplier, prompting a recall of the product on March 4, 2011 (link to recall http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm245795.htm ). The Minnesota Department of Health isolated the outbreak strain of E. coli O157:H7 from a sample of hazelnuts collected from the home of one case patient.

On March 4, 2011 DPH and DATCP issued a joint press release advising consumers to not eat and to discard any in-the-shell hazelnuts purchased since November 2, 2010 that are part of the recall. A list of Wisconsin grocery stores that sold the in-the-shell hazelnuts that were recalled is available on the DATCP website at http://datcp.wi.gov/news/?Id=255

A summary of the multistate outbreak investigation and link to the recall notice can be found at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website at http://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2011/hazelnuts0157/index.html

Previous Outbreaks

PDF: The free Adobe Reader® software is needed to download and view portable document format (PDF) files. learn more

Last Revised: August 16, 2011