Salmonella in sushi may have sickened 90 Featurepics.com Federal health officials are investigating an outbreak of salmonella that may be tied to seafood and sushi. By JoNel Aleccia Government health officials are investigating a growing outbreak of salmonella food poisoning possibly tied to restaurant sushi that has sickened at least 90 people in 19 states and the District of Columbia. The outbreak of salmonella Bareilly that has sent seven people to the hospital is mostly clustered on the eastern seaboard and the Gulf Coast, although cases have been reported as far west as Missouri and Texas, said Curtis Allen, a spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration. No deaths have been reported. The FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating the outbreak, which appears to be ongoing and expanding rapidly, according to an internal FDA email. There may be a lag of more than a month from the time people ate tainted food to the time they reported it. Allen said the outbreak appears to be tied to seafood, and possibly sushi, but it's still far too early to identify the actual cause. "Sushi is one possibility,"Allen said. The email identified spicy tuna roll sushi as "highly suspect," but Allen emphasized that that is a preliminary speculation that may be proved wrong later. The federal agencies are focusing on six restaurant clusters in Texas, Wisconsin, Maryland and Connecticut, according to the email, which was distributed outside the agency. Salmonella Bareilly is a strain sometimes associated with bean sprouts. Salmonella infections can cause nausea, vomiting, cramping, fever, chills and headache. Symptoms usually last four to seven days. Related story: 66 sickened in salmonella outbreak linked to turtles