Feeling sick? Don't blame the strawberries, state Health Department officials said.
Strawberry sales are down all around the country as a result of cyclospora outbreaks, for which strawberries were first suspected.Cyclospora is a parasite that causes diarrhea, vomiting, weight loss, fatigue and muscle aches. It is treatable with antibiotics but can last several weeks and cause dehydration while symptoms last.
Health officials first blamed the outbreak on strawberries. But they have since backed off that, because tests haven't found any contaminated strawberries. Fresh fruit, including raspberries and other berries, remains a suspect because many patients say they ate fruit mixes.
Scores of Utahns have called the state Health Department, claiming they were suffering the symptoms of the disease.
"Everybody has been throwing all their strawberries away because of those national reports, and we're telling them there's no reason to do that. Just wash them properly," said state epidemiologist Craig Nichols.
He said the worried callers may be suffering from nothing more than a seasonal summertime cold.
"Summertime is notorious because people don't think they should be ill during the summer and they're always surprised," Nichols said. "But we get reports of different types of illnesses all the time. We always see some upper-respiratory illnesses and a lot of diarrhea. It starts in June and by August they seem to pick up."
Several clinics along the Wasatch Front have reported an unusual increase in patients suffering viral infections, and day-care centers also are seeing more incidents of the so-called hand-foot-mouth disease, another type of virus.
"We definitely have a lot of really sick people, and we're seeing everything, from fevers to sore throat to nausea, vomiting and diarrhea," said Lauree White, nurse manager at the InstaCare clinic in Holladay. "We're probably talking about more than one bug here."
Nighttime Pediatrics Clinics have had the busiest summer since 1993, largely because of a family of viruses, called enteroviruses, said Medical Director Ken Broadbent. Kids are coming in with sores on their hands and feet, blisters on their tongues and on the back of the mouth. And there are also more cases of general viruses that cause rashes, headaches, stomachaches and diarrhea.
State epidemiologists cannot blame any one bug.
"If you start looking at all the possible viruses that cause these illnesses, there are literally hundreds of them," Nichols said.