MEXICO CITY -- Tests were negative for traces of salmonella at a cantaloupe-processing plant in Mexico amid an investigation into a deadly outbreak in the United States and Canada, Mexico said on Tuesday.
Mexican health officials in December ordered the temporary closure of the plant in the northern state of Sonora and took samples from surfaces and water.
Those samples were analyzed by a laboratory and did not detect the presence of salmonella strains, Mexican agriculture and health authorities said in a statement.
A new analysis of water, product and surface samples in production and packaging plants will be carried out in February, the statement added.
At least 11 deaths in the United States and Canada have been linked to the outbreak. Four deaths were reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and seven were reported by Canada's public health agency (PHAC).
Health authorities in both countries have implicated Mexico's Malichita- and Rudy-branded cantaloupes as the sources of the outbreak and issued recalls of the fruit.
(Reporting by Cassandra Garrison; Editing by Mark Porter)
