CDC says 90 people affected

Ninety people in 13 states have been infected in a deadly E. coli outbreak linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday, because it continues to analyze the source of the spread.

The outbreak has led to 27 hospitalizations and one previously reported death of an older adult in Colorado. 

Before Wednesday, the CDC last gave an update on the outbreak on Friday, when the agency said it had 75 cases in 13 states. The agency first announced the outbreak on Oct. 22.

Fresh slivered onions served on Quarter Pounders and other menu items at McDonald’s are “the likely source of this outbreak,” the CDC said on its website on Wednesday.

The extra illnesses are from before McDonald’s and Taylor Farms, which supplied onions to the affected region, took motion to remove the ingredient from affected locations, the agency added. The CDC believes the chance to the general public is “very low” because of the efforts from McDonald’s and Taylor Farms. 

“The likelihood of contaminated onions still being available on the market is low,” the agency wrote. 

Quarter Pounder hamburgers are a core menu item for McDonald’s, raking in billions of dollars annually. The fast-food giant on Sunday said the burgers will return to roughly a fifth of U.S. restaurants this week, or about 3,000 locations, after it pulled the menu item because of the outbreak. 

But around 900 of those locations will serve the Quarter Pounder without slivered onions for the foreseeable future because the CDC and other health authorities proceed to look at the source of the outbreak. The change will affect restaurants in Colorado, Kansas and Wyoming in addition to parts of Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Latest Mexico, Oklahoma and Utah.