Three elderly people have died and the number of those sickened by salmonella after eating infected smoked salmon has risen to 950, Dutch health officials said yesterday.

“Three elderly people have died as a result of being infected by Salmonella Thompson. In total, some 950 people have now been taken ill as a result of the salmon, which has been taken off the shelves,” said the National Institute for Public Health (RIVM) in The Netherlands.

Dutch food and consumer watchdog NVWA rang alarm bells earlier this month, pinning the outbreak on Dutch fish producer Foppen and advising all major Dutch supermarket chains to take the contaminated salmon off the shelves.

The RIVM added that around 100 people in the US were also infected “by the same type of salmonella.”

Foppen, headquartered in Harderwijk blamed a contaminated production line in Greece for the outbreak.

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