A team of health and agriculture officials has traveled to the United States to demand that Mexican tomatoes be cleared of any suspicion in a recent salmonella outbreak, according to media reports Tuesday.
Mexico's health secretary Jose Angel Cordova said the group would meet with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials in Washington.
Since the outbreak began in April, more than 1,000 people in 41 states, the District of Columbia and Canada have fallen ill, and at least 203 people have been hospitalized.
The infection was first linked to tainted-tomatoes and crippled the tomato business seriously during the investigation.
A lot of restaurants as well as tomato producers have rushed to blame the agencies for scaring people away from the products they sell. After FDA's announcements that tomatoes could be the cause of the salmonella outbreak, many people stopped buying the vegetable, which resulted in a more than 100 million U.S dollars loss for the industry.
The FDA has not released the results of tests it conducted in Mexico, but Mexico said last week that its tests found no salmonella in Mexican tomatoes.
The FDA has also added jalapeno peppers, cilantro and basil to a list of foods under investigation.
Source: Xinhua/Agencies
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