It has been announced that the US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) has uncovered the salmonella saintpaul strain in irrigation water and serrano peppers on a farm in Mexico, where jalapeno peppers are also grown.
Speaking at a US House of Representatives Congressional hearing, the FDA's assistant commissioner for food protection David Acheson revealed that investigators are currently trying to determine whether there is a link between the sample from the farm, located in Nuevo Leon, and that found in tainted jalapeno peppers in McAllen, Texas in the US.
Mr Acheson confirmed that the farm supplied a packing facility in Mexico that did business with Agricola Zaragosa, the McAllen-based distributor.
The FDA have not yet ruled out the possibility of tomatoes as another source of the outbreak, which has infected nearly 1,300 people across 43 US states since it was first discovered in April.
The organisation is now urging consumers to avoid eating raw serrano peppers from Mexico, although it has cleared tomatoes and jalapenos grown in the US.
