A San Francisco resident, who prefers to remain anonymous, has tested positive for cyclosporiasis, the gastrointestinal illness caused by a parasite found on produce.
The resident, a woman in her 40s, came down with the illness two weeks ago, she told Gazetteer SF in messages. (She declined to speak on the phone.)
“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever gone through,” she said. In the throes of it, she lived off of bone broth and toast and attempted to keep up with her remote work but ultimately ended up taking sick leave. “I could not leave the house. It was, as the name suggests, explosive.”
Cyclosporiasis usually causes frequent (and sometimes explosive) diarrhea, but symptoms also include nausea and fatigue. The cyclospora parasite spreads when infected human feces contaminate food and water supplies. Previous foodborne outbreaks of cyclosporiasis have been linked to various types of imported produce.
If not treated, cyclosporiasis can last anywhere from a few days to several weeks, and can also wane and recur.
In the first few days of symptoms, she suspected it was either the parasite or Norovirus. However, after five days of intense symptoms, the advice of two nurses, two days of waiting for an appointment, one special stool test, and four more days of waiting for the lab results, she was able to confirm that she was positive for cyclosporiasis.
The woman was prescribed Bactrim, an oral antibiotic, and is now on the mend. “Symptoms are still touch and go, to say the least. I should be back to solid food and leaving the house again soon,” she said.
She does not know what she ate that could have caused it. Cyclospora has a prolonged incubation period of up to 14 days, which makes identifying a source difficult.
“I eat out a lot, and at home have lots of berries and fruits and salads,” she said. “So, it’s anyone’s guess.”
The state health agency is looking out for clusters of cases that could indicate transmission occurring in California. The US Food and Drug Administration is also currently backtracing different clusters of cyclosporiasis outbreaks to identify the offending sources and products.
Last Friday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified Taylor Farms lettuce, which had been supplied to some Taco Bell restaurants in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia, as a potential source of the multistate outbreak. Taco Bell said on Friday it had “removed all affected Taylor Farms lettuce from Taco Bell stores. So go ahead and enjoy your Taco Bell today.”
On Friday, the FDA announced that a sample of lettuce from Taylor Farms had tested positive for cyclospora, though that test was later determined to be a false positive. The Salinas, Calif.-based farm supplies to several major restaurant chains across the US; it voluntarily recalled its iceberg lettuce products on Friday. In late 2024, an E. coli outbreak was linked to several restaurants, including some McDonald’s, using onions from a Taylor Farms facility in Colorado.
Despite the initial false positive, the FDA said Monday that its investigation was continuing to “converge on shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms locations in central Mexico.”
