At least 75 people have gotten sick after eating McDonald’s Quarter Pounders linked to a deadly E. coli strain, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday.
The 75 cases, up from 49 on Tuesday, have been reported in 13 states. Twenty-two people, up from 10, have been hospitalized. The CDC said Tuesday that one person had died and reported no new deaths Friday.
The increase in people getting sick, which consists of older cases, was expected, as it can take several weeks for investigators to link illnesses to a food poisoning outbreak. The most recent case was Oct. 10.
“I think there will most certainly be more illnesses reported,” said Matt Wise, chief of the CDC’s Outbreak Response and Prevention Branch.
Public health officials have interviewed 42 people who became ill. All said they’d eaten at a McDonald’s before they got sick. Most, the CDC said in a statement, “specifically mentioned eating a Quarter Pounder hamburger.”
The people who’ve gotten sick have ranged in age from 13 to 88. Most are men. Two people, one teenager and one adult, have been hospitalized with a severe kidney condition called hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can lead to permanent kidney failure or even death, according to the CDC.
The number of cases is likely much higher than what’s been reported, as most people with E. coli infections recover on their own and are never tested for the bacteria.
E. coli symptoms — which include vomiting, diarrhea and a fever of at least 102 degrees — generally start three to four days after eating contaminated food.
The Food and Drug Administration and the CDC have zeroed in on the slivered onions served on the hamburgers as the likely source of contamination, although health officials haven’t ruled out the beef patties used for the Quarter Pounders.
On Thursday, McDonald’s confirmed that Taylor Farms, a California-based food producer, supplied the onions used on the contaminated Quarter Pounders.
