Environment and health authorities in New Mexico, USA recalled cantaloupes sold by local produce retailers on Tuesday after three people who consumed the fruit suspected to be contaminated with listeria died from listeriosis.

The state's Environmental Health Bureau and Department of Health ordered the recall specifically of cantaloupes grown in Colorado's Rocky Ford region as a listeria outbreak in that state linked to the fruit have killed four.

Listeriosis killed two old men from Bernalillo County and a 61-year-old woman from Curry County, both in New Mexico. Six other people from Bernalillo, Chaves, Otero, De Baca, and Lea counties aged 43 to 63 were infected after eating cantaloupes and three new cases have been confirmed, according to health authorities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conducting a DNA test to determine if the strain of listeria in the cantaloupes eaten by the New Mexico victims is the same bacteria found in cantaloupes eaten by the four victims in Colorado.

"We have no evidence other than it's cantaloupe from southeast Colorado ... the Rocky Ford area," CNJOnline.com quoted Dr. Chad Smelser, epidemiologist for the New Mexico Department of Health, as saying Tuesday.

The department also advised people not to eat cantaloupes and to properly dispose cantaloupes coming from the Rocky Ford region by sealing it in a plastic bag before putting them in a trash bin to prevent animals from eating it.

Symptoms of listeria infection are fever, muscle aches, diarrhea, headache, stiff neck, confusion and convulsions. Old people, transplant patients, those with chronic disease and even pregnant mothers are vulnerable to the disease.

Processed meat and unpasteurized milk are usually the source of listeria. But fruits that sit on the ground can also be contaminated, according to Smelser.