Monthly Archives: January 2017

RASFF – norovirus (GII) in live oysters (Crassostrea gigas) from Ireland, via the Netherlands in Italy

RASFF – Vibrio cholerae (present in 1 of 5 samples /20g) in breaded butterfly prawns from Vietnam in Norway

RASFF -shigatoxin-producing Escherichia coli (stx2+ /25g) in frozen kangaroo striploins from Australia in the Netherlands

RASFF – Salmonella (in 2 out of 5 samples /25g) in meat meal for pets from Poland in Italy

RASFF – aflatoxins (B1 = 36.7 µg/kg – ppb) in groundnut kernels for birdfeed from Senegal in the United Kingdom

RASFF-aflatoxins (B1 = 80.4 µg/kg – ppb) in groundnuts kernals from the United States in the UK

RASFF-aflatoxins (B1 = 88.8 µg/kg – ppb) in groundnuts for bird feed from India in the UK

The Tribune India

At least 55 more residents of Sector 18 took ill, five of them with acute diarrhoea, today. With these fresh cases, the number of residents who have taken ill over the past three days due to contaminated water in Sector 18 has crossed the 450 mark, according to the UT Health Department report. However, the number is likely to be higher as several ailing residents might have approached hospitals or private healthcare professionals individually, said officials of the Health Department.

Edmonton Journal

Since 2012 there have been four pet-food recalls in Canada because one of the ingredients has become contaminated — most likely chicken — or there has been cross contamination between ingredients at production levels.

Three of those were dry pet food and the most recent, in 2012, was related to raw pet food.

“I think it’s a public-health issue that warrants more attention in the interest of people’s well-being as well as that of their pets,” she said.

“The thing is, when you see that pet food could be a source of salmonella infection, why would you take that risk? Why not eliminate that risk and make people aware of it so that people can be more vigilant about it.”

In the United States, 1.4 million people are infected with salmonella every year and 15,000 of those cases are hospitalized.

Outbreak News Today

CDC photo

In a follow-up report on the outbreak at the Humber College North Campus in Toronto, Toronto Public Health (TPH) reports receiving laboratory results that confirm norovirus was the cause of student illness at Humber College’s North Campus.

Additional laboratory testing is underway from other ill students that will help provide further evidence of norovirus being the cause of this outbreak.

Humber College continues to work with TPH and rigorously clean and disinfect the campus with special focus on common areas and high touch surfaces/areas including bathrooms and food establishments.

Food Safety News

Citing increasing demand for local food, a group of state legislators in Hawaii is supporting a bill to allow the sale of raw milk in retail stores, but only if it has “a label that warns about the risks of consuming unpasteurized milk, especially to children and the elderly.”

“The legislature finds that consumers’ food preferences have shifted toward locally-produced food in recent years,” the bill states.

Food Safety News

Whole Foods Market is closing down all three of its regional kitchens that prepared ready-to-eat food — including the one in Everett, MA, that netted the grocery chain an FDA warning letter citing Listeria problems — and will be using outside suppliers instead.

The move comes almost a year after inspectors from the Food and Drug Administration discovered a long list of “serious violations” at the Massachusetts facility during a February 2016 visit.