WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- State health officials say a food handler at Purdue University has typhoid fever.

According to officials the patient contracted the disease while traveling internationally.

People who ate at campus retaurants last month could be infected.

Typhoid fever can be treated but if it is not it could be fatal.

"What happens is you consume the organism, which is a salmonella organism. Then you begin to start having usually low-grade fevers over the course of a week. Then the fever start progressively getting higher," said Daniel Holbrook, Nurse Practitioner.

On average, only three cases of typhoid fever are reported in Indiana every year.