HEALTH officials are still trying to work out the source of the salmonella infection that has hospitalised four Tasmanian cricketers and an umpire.
The Tigers suspect food they ate in Adelaide on the final day of their Sheffield Shield match against South Australia last Friday was the mostly likely source of the poisoning.
But South Australia officials deny they are responsible.
The NSW Food Authority advises:
Almarae Dairy Products is recalling batches of their soft cheese sold in NSW through their retail store and a convience store in Punchbowl.
The batches are being recalled because of the presence of E.coli and Listeria which can cause illness if consumed. Listeria can cause illness especially in pregnant women, children under 5 years, people over 70 years and people with weakened immune systems.
The recalled product is:
The recall applies only to the above batches of the product and date.
A Staffordshire primary school has been closed due to an outbreak of E. coli. Three cases have been confirmed and all pupils at Friarswood Primary School in Newcastle-under-Lyme are being tested, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) said. The E. coli O157 bacteria usually causes diarrhoea, it added.
Staffordshire County Council said it is believed the infection was brought into the school from an outside source. A thorough clean is now under way.
The school will reopen when it safe to do so, the council added.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest reported there were 38 pathogen outbreaks resistant to at least one antibiotic between 1973 and 2011. Of those, 45 percent occurred between 2000 and 2011, but the group could not determine whether increased use of antibiotics played a role in the increase.
While the data did not make the link between antibiotics use in food animals and increased incidents of antibiotic-resistant strains of pathogens, CSPI did.
University of Aberdeen scientists bought raw chicken livers from a typical range of supermarkets and butchers over a two-year period and, after testing in the lab, discovered the bug Campylobacter in 81% of them.
In a study published in the International Journal of Food Microbiology the researchers also reveal that 56% of the types of Campylobacter found in contaminated chicken livers matched the 10 most common strains of the bug found in people with Campylobacter poisoning
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and G. Dion Foods are warning the public not to consume the Dion brand curry powder described below because the product may be contaminated with Salmonella. The affected product, Dion brand Organic Curry powder is sold in 36 g packages bearing lot code 02B01G and UPC 6 20383 02007 7. This product has been distributed in Quebec and Ontario.
There have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of this product.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) launched their annual report on zoonoses and food-borne outbreaks.
The report, providing data on 15 zoonotic diseases in the European Union for 2010, supports the European Commission and EU Member States in their consideration of possible measures to protect citizens from risks related to zoonoses.
The report highlights a positive progress in the reduction of reported human cases of salmonellosis by almost 9% in 2010, as well as decreases in other zoonoses such as infections caused by Yersinia enterocolitica, Trichinella and Listeria monocytogenes. “Decreases in human cases of salmonellosis and other zoonotic diseases show that EU level control measures, resulting from surveillance of disease in humans with information from food and animals, are effective”, states Johan Giesecke, Chief Scientist at ECDC.
On the other hand, the number of cases of campylobacteriosis has been increasing over the last five years, and human cases of Shiga toxin/verotoxin -producing Escherichia coli (STEC/VTEC) are also increasing. These trends “highlight the need of further joint efforts”, continues Prof. Gieseke. “For this, ECDC will continue to strengthen its links with all important partners and foster collaboration in order to decrease the occurrence of these diseases in the EU”.
Antibiotic resistance remains common among meat-borne pathogens, according to the annual National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System report released late last week.
From January to December 2010, samples of retail chicken breast, ground turkey, ground beef, and pork chops were collected and tested for Salmonella. Poultry samples were also cultured for Campylobacter. Some labs also pulled samples of meat and poultry to test for E. coli and Enterococcus.
The report highlighted a number of findings that may reinforce what many public health advocates have been arguing for years: that antibiotic use in agriculture is contributing to drug resistance in bacteria. The NARMS report pointed out that third-generation cephalosporin resistance rose in chicken breasts (10 to 34.5 percent) and ground turkey (8.1 to 16.3 percent) isolates from 2002 to 2010.
Contamination during sun-dried tomato processing is a possible “root cause” of an outbreak of hepatitis A in the UK, according to the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA).
