Three people have died from listeria after an outbreak of the infection at a fast food diner in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bacteria was discovered in the ice cream machine at a Frugals restaurant in Tacoma, Washington, affecting all the milkshake flavors sold by the venue, the state’s health department said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It added the outbreak caused three deaths and left six people in hospital – with the ages of those hospitalized between 40 and 79.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All six had the same strain of listeria, and “had conditions that made their immune systems less able to fight disease,” the department reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ice cream machines at the family-owned diner were not cleaned properly, officials said, adding no other restaurants in the chain are affected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though the machine was last used on 8 August, the health department said listeria can still affect people up to 70 days later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Local officials have said anyone who has been pregnant, is aged over 65, or has a weakened immune system, and drank a milkshake at the diner between 29 May and 7 August, should contact a doctor if they develop symptoms – which include fatigue, headaches, seizures and vomiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Frugals Tacoma posted a statement on Instagram over the weekend, saying: “Last week, Frugals was notified by the Pierce County Health Department (PCHD) of an investigation into a possible listeria outbreak at our Tacoma Frugals locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Since that time, we have been working with PCHD to identify and contain the source of listeria after a test on a milkshake machine in our Tacoma store tested positive for the bacteria.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It said it was “deeply saddened” by the deaths, adding it was “heartbroken and deeply regret any harm our actions could have caused”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three people have died from listeria after an outbreak of the infection at a fast food diner in the US. Bacteria was discovered in the ice cream machine at a Frugals restaurant in Tacoma, Washington, affecting all the milkshake flavors sold by the venue, the state’s health department said. It added the outbreak caused three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7235,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[220],"tags":[2948,2950,2949,2947,2309],"class_list":["post-7234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-diner","tag-ice-cream","tag-listeria","tag-machine","tag-outbreak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7236,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7234\/revisions\/7236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}