Salmonella In Cascade County: What You Need To Know

Several Salmonella Cases Have Been Reported In Cascade County

According to reporting from Jenn Rowell at the Electric:

As of Tuesday, November 12, 2024, 6 students and one staff member from Sacajawea Elementary and Valley View Elementary plus one person not affiliated with either school, have been diagnosed with salmonella. The students were not isolated to one grade or one class, they were across grade levels.

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Cascade City County Health Department Is Investigating

CCHD has contacted all of the people that are confirmed in the outbreak. CCHD is also working closely with the nursing staff in the schools to notify the families, limit the spread and find out where the outbreak came from.

From the Mayo Clinic, salmonella is generally spread through contaminated food but can also be spread through an infected person preparing food, pets and contaminated surfaces.

Great Falls Public Schools assistant superintendent, Jackie Mainwaring, told The Electric that in those 2 elementary schools, around 450 meals are served. There is a 10 day window for the salmonella, (Over 4,000 meals served) so they would expect more people sick if it were from school lunches. Mainwaring added that Halloween happening in the outbreak window makes things even harder to track down.

What Is Salmonella And What Are The Symptoms?

From Merriam Webster Dictionary: Salmonella is "any of a genus (Salmonella) of usually motile enterobacteria that are pathogenic for humans and other warm-blooded animals and cause food poisoning, gastrointestinal inflammation, typhoid fever, or septicemia"

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According to the Mayo Clinic, the symptoms are:

• Diarrhea
• Stomach cramps
• Fever
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Chills
• Headache
• Blood in the stool

It can take from 6 hours to 6 days for symptoms to present themselves. The symptoms can last a few days up to a week. Most people who get salmonella think they have the stomach flu.

We'll update the story as we find out more.