Virginia health officials say this summer more people in Northern Virginia are getting sick from food-borne illnesses.
“In the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen or suspected 50 additional cases of food-borne illness, primarily caused by the Salmonella bacteria,” says Virginia Department of Health spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell.
Those 50 cases in Northern Virginia are in addition to another 150 cases previously reported.
“We are seeing an increase, and it is of concern,” Caldwell says. “Some of the illnesses we’ve been seeing have been serious enough to cause hospitalization. Some of these people are not just the very young or the very elderly. They’re middle-aged people, too.”
So far, nobody in Northern Virginia has died.