The United States Centres for Disease Control says four
people died and 33 people were sickened, many requiring hospital treatment,
after eating Dole salads.
It was the Canadian Food Inspection Agency that identified
Dole’s processing centre at Springfield, Ill., as the source of Listeria
monocytogenes.
The CFIA picked up 55 samples of 12 different Dole salads
from retail stores in January and found the same strain of Listeria that had
sickened 19 people in the United States and 14 in Canada. At that point one
person had died.
The CFIA issued a recall of all Dole salads from the
Springfield plant on Jan. 22.
The earliest case of Listeria of the same strain involved in
the recall was July 15, 2015, in the United States.
There have been reports that Dole’s own testing identified
Listeria in the processing plant as early as March, 2015.
The issues are likely to get a full airing during a
class-action lawsuit.
