The Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) are advising pregnant women and those with a weakened immune system to avoid eating ready-to-eat cold-smoked or cured fish.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) are advising pregnant women and those with a weakened immune system to avoid eating ready-to-eat cold-smoked or cured fish, following publication of a risk assessment showing they are at higher risk of severe illness from listeriosis. Products include smoked salmon, smoked trout and gravlax.
As the risk of serious illness from listeriosis increases with age, the FSA and FSS are also advising that older people should be aware of the risks associated with eating these products.
The FSA and FSS’s joint risk assessment (Opens in a new window), commissioned in response to an ongoing outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes linked to ready-to-eat cold smoked fish, found that while the risk of contracting listeriosis in higher-risk individuals from cold-smoked fish is low, the severity of the illness is high. This means there is the potential for severe illness, hospitalisation, and death among higher risk groups.
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