About 150,000 food products that contain celery linked to an E. coli outbreak have been recalled in 18 states, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says.
The celery was identified as the source of E. coli in Costco chicken salad that sickened 19 people, United Press International reported.
The recall covers products from nearly a dozen retailers -- including Costco, Starbucks, Target and Walmart -- in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
The recalled products include more than 45,000 Starbucks holiday turkey sandwiches in California, Oregon and Nevada, UPI reported.
Despite the recall, the number of E. coli O157:H7 cases linked to the celery is expected to rise in the next several weeks due to the large number of products and stores involved, the FDA said.
"This is a very bad strain," Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, told CBS News, according to UPI.
"This is one of those strains of E. coli that can result in subsequent kidney failure, especially among children. So it's a much more hazardous strain than the one that involved the Chipotle restaurants," he explained.
