Food Illness at Basketball Game in Pierre Traced to Stand of "Walking Tacos''
"Walking tacos'' sold at the Pierre-Mitchell high school basketball game in Pierre, South Dakota, last week was the likely cause of a food illness outbreak that appears to have sickened more than 50 people.
State Epidemiologist Lon Kightlinger said testing revealed the outbreak organism to be clostridium perfringens,, or C. perfringens, a bacteria found on raw meat that can spread if cooking doesn't kill it and the meat is left to simmer at temperatures that are too low. The game took place at Riggs High School.
Walking tacos is a portable dish created by adding ground beef, cheese and salsa to a small bag of corn chips. Seventy-five percent of the respondents who ate the tacos reported becoming ill, Kightlinger said.
The DOH had 217 voluntary telephone and website responses from both well and ill people who attended the game in Pierre. The case remains open, but Kightlinger believes the problem was limited to the basketball game.
Symptoms of clostridium perfringens include diarrhea and cramps lasting less than 24 hours, or longer in some cases. The onset of illness is usually quick and in this case, three quarters of those who became ill reported getting sick between midnight and 6 a.m. the following morning.
The South Dakota Department of Health has posted on its webste a food safety lesson from the USDA titled "Cooking for Groups. A volunteer's guide to food safety.''
Source: The Daily Republic
