If a patient in an institution has a febrile, diarrheal illness and a history of eating peanut butter in an institution or peanut butter-containing products, should a stool culture be done?
Persons who have a febrile, diarrheal illness after consumption of these products should be tested for salmonella. If a case is positive for salmonella, the isolate should be sent to the Illinois Department of Public Health laboratory for serotyping and molecular fingerprinting, which will determine if the case is the same genetic strain as the outbreak pattern. Hospital laboratories are asked to promptly report positive salmonella results to the local health department in their area and submit salmonella isolates to the Illinois Department of Public Health laboratory.
