The CDC said Saturday they are working with the Florida Department of Health and the FDA to investigate a dead bat that was found in a packaged salad purchased from a Walmart in Florida.
On Saturday, Fresh Express issued a recall of a limited number of cases of Organic Marketside Spring Mix that was sold to Walmart stores in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.
The salads were sold in a clear container with production code G089B19 and best-if-used-by date of APR 14, 2017 located on the front label.
All remaining packages of salad from the same lot have been removed from all store locations where the salad was sold.
Two people in Florida reported eating some of the salad before the bat was found. The bat was sent to the CDC rabies lab for testing.
The CDC said the deteriorated condition of the bat did not allow for them to definitively rule out whether this bat had rabies.
Officials said transmission of rabies by eating a rabid animal is extremely uncommon, and the virus does not survive very long outside of the infected animal.
In this circumstance, the risk of rabies transmission is considered to be very low, but because it isn’t zero, the two people who ate salad from the package that contained the bat were recommended to begin post-exposure rabies treatment. Both people report being in good health and neither has any signs of rabies.
All remaining packages of salad from the same lot have been removed from all store locations where the salad was sold.
Consumers who may have already purchased the product should discard it. The CDC recommends that anyone who ate the recalled salad product and found animal material in it to contact their health department for evaluation.
A full refund is available where purchased or by calling the Fresh Express Consumer Response Center toll-free at (800) 242-5472 during the hours of 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Central Time.
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