As the number of confirmed salmonellosis outbreak victims grew to 172 Tuesday, state and federal investigators tried to unravel the far-reaching outbreak and its causes.

State and federal investigators worked to contain the far-reaching salmonellosis outbreak as he number reached 172 victims Tuesday.

"We will take care of people who got sick," vowed Steve Sheetz, chairman of the Altoona-based convenience store chain linked to the outbreak. The company will compensate those customers, but officials have not decided how, he told Karen Roebuck of the Tribune-Review.

State and federal investigators still are looking at lettuce or Roma tomatoes as the likely carriers of the salmonella bacteria, but were surprised Monday when salmonella found on tomatoes at a Franklin County Sheetz store turned out to be a different strain than the Javiana one that sickened people in 24 Pennsylvania counties, Ohio, West Virginia and possibly in Maryland and Virginia.