Cyclospora in salad: The diarrhea parasite outbreak has now sickened over 17,000 nationwide — see the hotspots

Lettuce and bagged salad is thought to be a potential cause of the cyclosporiasis outbreak.

Nico De Pasquale Photography/Getty Images The number of confirmed cyclosporiasis cases in the US has topped 17,180, health officials said Tuesday.

People got sick after eating lettuce sold in several states — Michigan and Ohio were especially hard-hit.

Two maps show the states with the most reported cases and where food has been recalled.

The Midwest remains the hotspot of a major outbreak of cyclosporiasis , a parasitic infection that can trigger weeks of watery diarrhea.

As of August 31, federal health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said that 17,180 people across the US have developed laboratory-confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis this summer.

Another 11,844 cases are still under investigation.

Most of the cases are clustered in a group of states bunched together in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic. (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})(); What was previously a five-state outbreak, with most cases reported in Michigan and Ohio, now involves at least nine states: Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

Missouri is also reporting an unusually high number of cyclosporiasis cases this week, though Michigan and Ohio are still leading in case counts.

The CDC said in July that 1,947 cyclosporiasis cases were linked to a specific type of iceberg lettuce distributed by Taylor Farms to Taco Bell locations in the nine states, but that is far from the full extent of the outbreak.

Overall, more than 517 people are known to have been hospitalized this summer with the parasite, which causes watery diarrhea and severe stomach cramps that can last for several weeks.

The first two deaths in the outbreak were reported in Michigan on Monday.

The parasite is not usually deadly, but it can lead to severe dehydration, which can be fatal in older adults or people with compromised immune systems.

Cyclospora season in the US typically runs between the beginning of May and the end of August.