The Norwegian Food Safety Authority is collaborating with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health , the Norwegian Veterinary Institute and relevant municipal supervisors to find the cause of the outbreak.
All four people, three women and one man, fell ill in June this year and have been admitted to hospital. All are now healthy or improving. They are aged 50-80 and live in Viken (2), Vestland and Oslo.
The Norwegian Food Safety Authority has interviewed the persons and obtained product samples which the Veterinary Institute has analyzed (vi.no). Three out of four people report having eaten either smoked salmon or smoked trout from Troll Salmon in the time before they became ill. The outbreak bacterium was found in two packs of smoked salmon from Troll Salmon . One of the people had the packages in the freezer.
– The Norwegian Food Safety Authority is in close dialogue with the business, which must ensure that they do not sell products that represent a possible health hazard for consumers. The Norwegian Food Safety Authority also monitors that the company carries out necessary investigations and implements sufficient measures in production, says Lindis Folkvord, section manager in the Norwegian Food Safety Authority’s biological food safety section.
Advice for vulnerable groups
Most people can eat foods containing the listeria bacteria without becoming seriously ill, but susceptible people tolerate less of the bacteria.
– It is a general advice that pregnant women, people with weakened immune systems and the elderly with a weakened general condition should eat fish and smoked fish that are as fresh as possible. This means that the product should be well within the best-before date, says Folkvord.
Other measures to reduce the risk of listeria bacteria are to store such products in a refrigerator at 4 degrees or colder, and to wash equipment and hands after handling risk products to reduce the risk of transfer of listeria bacteria to other products.
Risk product
Listeria is usually transmitted through food, especially refrigerated foods with a long shelf life that are eaten without heat treatment. Examples of such risk products are soft ripening cheeses and unpasteurized semi-hard cheeses, unpasteurized milk, smoked, raw and raw fish, some types of cut-up cooked meat spreads and raw meat.
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