All 23 patients with available information reported contact with backyard poultry flocks, according to the CDC. The patients range in age from one to 78 years old, with 40 percent under five. Fourteen patients said they owned backyard poultry, and 13 had purchased or obtained the birds this year.
Cases were reported in 13 states, mostly in the Midwest, including six in Michigan, five each in Wisconsin and Ohio, and three each in Indiana, Kentucky and Maine. The CDC has not identified the specific poultry supplier or how the cases are linked across states. All patients were infected with a strain resistant to the antibiotic Fosfomycin, the CDC said.
Eight patients also had infections resistant to at least one other antibiotic used to treat salmonella.