Avoid an Intestinal Illness - Wash your Hands and Salad!

There are more and more Cyclospora infections in both Harris and Fort Bend Counties.

Health officials in both counties telling you that this is the season (Summer) for gastrointestinal illnesses - especially if you partake of produce - like fruit and those convenient salad-in-a-bag things. It can spread easily and quickly and is usually more dangerous for the elderly and infants. Cyclospora is rarely fatal, though.

1. How do you avoid it and still get your fruit and veggies? Simple Before you prepare these items for eating:
   Wash your hands with soap - like you did during Covid. Warm water, soap, 20 seconds.
2. Wash the produce with water and let them dry naturally - including those bagged salads.

• 
  Houston Health saying that these are especially good carriers of Cyclospora:
  fresh cilantro
• pre-packaged salad mix
• raspberries
• basil
• snow peas
• mesclun lettuce

The good news: You symptoms will probably last shorter than 2 weeks - usually only a few days - and there are no lasting bad health effects.

Photo:Getty