Schools, hospitals, nursing homes and other institutions that purchased single-serve cups of Blue Bell ice cream are being urged to return them as a listeria-related recall broadened Tuesday.
Multiple state and federal agencies launched an investigation into Blue Bell products earlier this month after five Kansans who ate them at Via Christi Hospital St. Francis in Wichita became sick with listeriosis, a potentially-serious bacterial infection. Three of them died.
Officials said Tuesday that the investigation indicated that three-ounce cups of strawberry, vanilla and chocolate ice cream that the company sold to institutions and food service companies in 23 states, including Kansas and Missouri, could also be contaminated.
Listeria can not be spread from person-to-person.
Symptoms of listeriosis include fever, muscle aches, diarrhea and other gastrointestinal distress.
The latest investigational results are of concern because people with compromised immune systems, including the sick, elderly and others in institutions, are at increased risk. The latest results also broaden the recall to more than one Blue Bell production facility.
The retail products that were part of the initial recall were produced in a Texas facility. The single-serve cups now being recalled were produced at a facility in Broken Arrow, Okla.
The cups were not sold through retail outlets but distributed only to institutions like hospitals and schools.
Blue Bell said it was working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to resolve the issue.