By admin 
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — A parasitic stomach illness has spread to 34 states, including Arizona, with the CDC counting 1,645 cases since May 1 and 141 hospitalizations. Arizona health officials have reported 19 confirmed infections so far this year.
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Experts say the true number of cases is likely higher than what has been confirmed and will continue to climb.
The illness, cyclosporiasis, is linked to contaminated food or water. Health officials say the exact source of the current outbreak has not been identified.
What is cyclosporiasis?
The parasite spreads through contaminated food or water — not person to person. Symptoms include watery diarrhea, cramping, nausea, loss of appetite, fatigue, and low-grade fever, and can appear between two days and two weeks after exposure.
Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, said the source likely traces back to a breakdown in food handling or processing.
“In other words, sewage was in the field or sewage was in the processing plant and nobody detected it,” Humble said.
Federal cuts drawing scrutiny
Health officials and critics are pointing to Trump administration cuts to the USDA, FDA, and CDC as factors that may have worsened the outbreak.
“There’s a really good chance that this outbreak may never have happened if 25% of the workforce wasn’t fired,” Humble said. “So you can’t say, you know, the DOGE cuts and the early cuts in the Trump administration made this outbreak happen. But what you can say is we were more likely to have been able to prevent this in the first place if those cuts had never happened,” he said.
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FoodNet surveillance changes raise concern
Officials also raised concerns about changes to FoodNet, a collaborative surveillance program involving the CDC, 10 state health departments, the USDA, and the FDA. Starting last July, reporting data for most pathogens tracked by FoodNet became optional. Cyclospora was among the pathogens affected by that change.
Humble said state and county health departments remain the primary investigators in outbreak cases.
“The fact that FoodNet is compromised may injure that ability some to detect how this happened, but really it’s the state and county health departments that are in place that are funded separately that are really the detectives,” he said.
What you can do
Routine stool tests do not screen for Cyclospora. Health officials say patients who believe they may be infected should specifically request testing. Cooking kills the parasite and the CDC recommends washing hands and produce thoroughly.
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