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The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late Saturday said it had received a dead bat from a consumer who claimed it was found in a packaged salad mix, sparking an investigation that has prompted the Atlanta-based agency to recommend post-exposure rabies treatment for two people.
CDC said the deteriorated condition of the dead bat did not permit it to definitely rule out that the bat had rabies.
The dead bat is alleged to have been found in a bag of Fresh Express Organic Marketside Spring Mix. The CDC said the risk of rabies transmission was extremely low, but could not be ruled out. It therefore recommended the two people who ate the salad mix get the post-exposure rabies treatment as a necessary precaution. Neither of the individuals shows any signs of rabies.
The salad mix were sold by Walmart stores in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. Fresh Express has recalled the product. It has the production code G089B19 and best-if-used-by date of Apr 14, 2017 on the front label, and UPC code 6 8113132897 5 on the bottom of the container.
“Upon receiving notification, both Walmart and Fresh Express food safety and rapid response teams, in close coordination with regulatory authorities, acted immediately to review all relevant records, launch an intensive investigation and initiate product removal and recall procedures,” Fresh Express said.
There have been no other reports of animal matter.
The Florida Department of Health, US Food and Drug Administration(FDA) and CDC are part of the investigation into the dead bat.
