Salmonella is the cause of massive food poisoning in Tuzla Canton in Bosnia, the Cantonal Institute of Public Health confirmed for Vijesti.ba news portal.

“This morning, we received an official confirmation from the Institute of Microbiology of the University Hospital Tuzla that in the isolate, ie for three hospitalized patients, Salmonella bacteria was found, which was our suspicion,” said Blasko Topalovic, an epidemiologist at the Public Health Institute of Tuzla Canton.

According to the data of this Institute, more than one hundred persons were poisoned by food in Srebrenik. Most were from the area of this municipality but also from Gracanica, Gradacac and Tuzla. Some sought help at municipal health centers and some at UKC in Tuzla.

From the day of the poisoning to the present, a total of 61 people have come to the Infectious Diseases Clinic.

Of these, 13 were withheld from clinical treatment. Five children and eight adults were hospitalized.

Another person with salmonella poisoning is being treated at the hospital in Cacak, central Serbia, Director Dr. Radoslav Milosevic said on Wednesday.

However, the new patient, an 85-year-old man, did not come from a nursing home in the village of Vranici where five elderly persons died of this form of food poisoning during the past week.

According to Milosevic, the patient is “a neighbor” of the Dvoje nursing home.

He added that the condition of two other patients the hospital is treating for the same disease has deteriorated.

Currently, the Cacak hospital is treating nine salmonella poisoning patients, while one more has been admitted to the Uzice Health Care Center.

The nursing home salmonella epidemic was reported on April 16. 41 persons have been infected, among them the staff and two locals. Five persons have passed away.