A microscopic parasite found in contaminated food products is ruining summer meals across the United States in the largest outbreak of its kind in the country's history. And health officials have yet to identify the source, although the state of Michigan, which has reported the highest number of infections, has signalled that lettuce or salad greens might be the culprit. Since 1 May, 1,645 infections with the parasite Cyclospora cayetanensis have been confirmed, and more than 5,100 further cases are under investigation. These figures ' which have accumulated in just a few weeks ' have quickly surpassed the total number of cases typically seen in a year, says Joel Barratt, a molecular parasitologist at Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. More than 100 people with C. cayetanensis infections have been hospitalized, but no deaths have been reported. One issue that is probably impeding the investigation is that 'the number of staff working on these outbreaks is not what it used...
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