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During the 1960s and early 1970s, numerous cases of salmonellosis in U.S. children were traced to small turtles (<4 inches in carapace length), leading to a 1975 federal ban on the sale of such turtles. However, sporadic cases and clusters of turtle-associated salmonellosis still occur. In this report, investigators described the largest-ever outbreak of this infection in the U.S.
The outbreak was first detected in September 2007, when South Carolina health officials were notified about two girls who developed bloody diarrhea 1 to 2 days after swimming together in an in-ground pool with two small turtles that belonged to one of the girls. A stool sample from one girl and a water sample from the turtle's habitat both grew Salmonella enterica …