Some 250 women working at Foxconn’s iPhone factory in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu were treated for food poisoning this month. One-hundred-fifty-nine were hospitalized.
That prompted demonstrations against living conditions at company hostels that have kept the factory at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, closed since December 18.
Apple said it has placed the plant “on probation” and is working with the supplier to rapidly implement “a comprehensive set of corrective actions.”
Researchers at the University of California-Davis have developed a new type of cooling cube with the potential, they say, to transform how cold storage is done.
The benefits of plastic-free, “jelly ice cubes” are that they do not melt, are compostable and antimicrobial, and can help prevent cross-contamination.
It can be easy for foodservice operators and their employees not to think about the food safety implications of how ice is used and handled. If they don’t take proper precautionary measures to handle food properly or keep up with necessary preventive maintenance measures to ensure that their ice machines are clean, sanitary and operating safely, there can be serious food safety risks. The researchers at the UC-Davis took note of this concern.
The researchers began working on their coolant cubes after Luxin Wang, an associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology, saw the amount of ice used at fish-processing plants and the cross-contamination that meltwater could spread among products or drains.
“The amount of ice used by these fish-processing sites is massive,” Wang said. “We need to control the pathogens.”
Posted in Decontamination Microbial, Food Micro Blog, Food Microbiology, Food Microbiology Blog, Food Microbiology Research, Food Microbiology Testing, Food Safety, Food Technology, microbial contamination, Microbiological Risk Assessment, Microbiology, Microbiology Investigations, Research, Technology
Five outbreaks still active, two with source still unidentified.
| Date Posted |
Reference # |
Pathogen |
Product(s) Linked to Illnesses (if any) |
Total Case Count |
| 12/29/2021 | 1052 | E. coli O157:H7 | Not Yet Identified | 11 |
| 12/20/2021 | 1039 | Listeria monocytogenes |
Packaged Salad | See Outbreak Advisory |
| 12/15/2021 | 1048 | Listeria monocytogenes |
Packaged Salad | See Outbreak Advisory |
| 11/24/2021 | 1044 | Salmonella
Javiana |
Not Yet Identified |
60 |
| 11/17/2021 | 1043 | E. coli O157:H7 |
Spinach | See Outbreak Advisory |
| 9/15/2021 | 1031 | Salmonella Oranienburg |
Red, Yellow, and White Onions |
See Outbreak Advisory |
Posted in E.coli O157, E.coli O157:H7, FDA, food bourne outbreak, Food Micro Blog, Food Microbiology, Food Microbiology Blog, Food Microbiology Testing, foodborne outbreak, foodbourne outbreak, Listeria, Listeria monocytogenes, microbial contamination, Microbiological Risk Assessment, Microbiology, Microbiology Investigations, outbreak, Salmonella, Salmonella Oranienburg
Salmonella continues to be a significant cause of foodborne illnesses in human medicine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Salmonella as the second leading cause of foodborne illness in the United States, and the leading cause of both hospitalizations and deaths. Salmonella enterica 4,[5],12:i:- (STM) is a monophasic variant of S. Typhimurium and it is an emerging threat to both human and animal health. STM was first identified in the 1980’s from poultry products and has become increasingly prevalent in meat products including pork. STM has also been identified in swine farms as well as feed manufacturing environments and feed itself. Similar pulse-field gel electrophoresis profiles have been observed between human clinical cases and the STM samples originating from swine feed. These related profiles suggest a link between swine ingesting contaminated feed and the source of foodborne illness in human. The objective of this article was to better understand the history of STM and the possible pathway between swine feed to the household table. Continued research is necessary to better understand how STM can enter both the feed supply chain and the pork production chain to avoid contamination of pork products destined for human consumption.
The local block development officer said the students started complaining of stomach upset and nausea after eating certain food items for Christmas.
About 30 girls of a training institute in Pune, Maharashtra, fell ill due to suspected food poisoning after a Christmas dinner following which many of them had to be admitted to a hospital. An investigation is underway.
The incident happened at Nav Gurukul training centre of Flora Institute of Technology, Kusegaon in Bhor taluka. Local block development officer Vishal Tanpure said 31 students started complaining of stomach upset and nausea after eating some food items for Christmas.
Pune district civil surgeon Dr Ashok Nandapurkar said the girls had consumed food items made from paneer (Indian cottage cheese) for Christmas. “On Monday, some of them complained of stomach ache and nausea. A total of 22 girls have been taken to Bhor sub-district hospital. Of them seven are admitted and the rest are being treated at the OPD level. The remaining students have been taken to Sassoon hospital,” he said.
Officials said the condition of all 30 girls was stable, adding that necessary samples were being collected for examination. “The local administration has initiated the investigation and sent a team to collect food and water samples from the spot,” Tanpure was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
The object of this study was to examine non-thermal treatments to reduce foodborne pathogens in raw beef. Foodborne-illness pathogens were inoculated in the raw beef. Death rates of foodborne illness pathogens were evaluated by non-thermal decontamination methods(high pressure processing at 500MPa[HPP] for 2min, 5min, and 7min; UV LED radiation at 405nm[UV LED] for 2h, 6h, and 24h; hypochlorous acid water at 100ppm[HAW] for 1min, 3min, and 5min; 2.5% lactic acid[LA] for 1min, 3min, and 5min; modified atmosphere that replaced O2 to CO2 [MAP] for 24h and 48h; bio-gel[BG] application for 24h and 48h. Quality characteristics were measured after applying the practical non-thermal decontamination methods. After the treatment of HPP for 7min, inactivity rates were 4.4-6.7Log CFU/g for E. coli, Salmonella, and L. monocytogenes and 1.7Log CFU/g for S. aureus (p <0.05). After the treatment with UV LED for 24h, the reduced cell counts were 0.5, 0.7, and 0.3Log CFU/g for E. coli , Salmonella , and S. aureus, respectively(p <0.05), but no significant reduction for L. monocytogenes. When the beef was treated with HAW was treated for 5min, 0.6Log CFU/g of E. coli, 0.5Log CFU/g of Salmonella, 0.4Log CFU/g of S. aureus , and 0.5Log CFU/g of L. monocytogenes were inactivated. After the beef was treated with LA for 5min, 1.8Log CFU/g of E. coli, 3.0Log CFU/g of Salmonella, 1.3Log CFU/g of S. aureus, and 1.9Log CFU/g of L. monocytogenes were inactivated. MAP for 48h caused the inactivation of 0.3Log CFU/g of E. coli, 0.1Log CFU/g of Salmonella. After treatment of BG for 48h, 0.3Log CFU/g of E. coli and 0.4Log CFU/g of Salmonella were significantly decreased(p <0.05). HPP cooked the beef after 2min of treatment. HAW and BG changed the surface color of the beef, LA reduced the pH of beef (p<0.05). However, UV LED did not cause any changes in the beef quality properties. These results indicates that UV LED can improve the food safety of raw beef.
Posted in Decontamination Microbial, E.coli, Food Micro Blog, Food Microbiology, Food Microbiology Blog, Food Microbiology Research, Food Microbiology Testing, Listeria, Listeria monocytogenes, microbial contamination, Microbiological Risk Assessment, Microbiology, Microbiology Investigations, Research, Salmonella
Background: Disinfection of medical devices designed for clinical use associated or not with the growing area of tissue engineering is an urgent need. However, traditional disinfection methods are not always suitable for some biomaterials, especially those sensitive to chemical, thermal, or radiation. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the minimal concentration of ozone gas (O3) necessary to control and kill a set of sensitive or multi-resistant Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. The cell viability, membrane permeability, and the levels of reactive intracellular oxygen (ROS) species were also investigated;
Material and Methods: Four standard strains and a clinical MDR strain were exposed to low doses of ozone at different concentrations and times. Bacterial inactivation (cultivability, membrane damage) was investigated using colony counts, resazurin as a metabolic indicator, and propidium iodide (PI). A fluorescent probe (H2DCFDA) was used for the ROS analyses;
Results: No reduction in the count colony was detected after O3 exposure compared to the control group. However, the cell viability of E. coli (30%), P. aeruginosa (25%), and A. baumannii (15%) was reduced considerably. The bacterial membrane of all strains was not affected by O3 but presented a significant increase of ROS in E. coli (90 ± 14%), P. aeruginosa (62.5 ± 19%), and A. baumanni (52.6 ± 5%);
Conclusion: Low doses of ozone were able to interfere in the cell viability of most strains studied, and although it does not cause damage to the bacterial membrane, increased levels of reactive ROS are responsible for causing a detrimental effect in the lipids, proteins, and DNA metabolism. View Full-Text
Posted in Decontamination Microbial, E.coli, Food Micro Blog, Food Microbiology, Food Microbiology Blog, Food Microbiology Research, Food Microbiology Testing, Food Pathogen, Food Technology, microbial contamination, Microbiological Risk Assessment, Microbiology, Microbiology Investigations, Ozone, Pathogen, pathogenic, Pseudomonas, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Pseudomonas fluorescens, Research, Technology
Seven major food- and waterborne norovirus outbreaks in Western Finland during 2014–2018 were re-analysed. The aim was to assess the effectiveness of outbreak investigation tools and evaluate the Kaplan criteria. We summarised epidemiological and microbiological findings from seven outbreaks. To evaluate the Kaplan criteria, a one-stage meta-analysis of data from seven cohort studies was performed. The case was defined as a person attending an implicated function with diarrhoea, vomiting or two other symptoms. Altogether, 22% (386/1794) of persons met the case definition. Overall adjusted, 73% of norovirus patients were vomiting, the mean incubation period was 44 h (4 h to 4 days) and the median duration of illness was 46 h. As vomiting was a more common symptom in children (96%, 143/149) and diarrhoea among the elderly (92%, 24/26), symptom and age presentation should drive hypothesis formulation. The Kaplan criteria were useful in initial outbreak assessments prior to faecal results. Rapid food control inspections enabled evidence-based, public-health-driven risk assessments. This led to probability-based vehicle identification and aided in resolving the outbreak event mechanism rather than implementing potentially ineffective, large-scale public health actions such as the withdrawal of extensive food lots. Asymptomatic food handlers should be ideally withdrawn from high-risk work for five days instead of the current two days. Food and environmental samples often remain negative with norovirus, highlighting the importance of research collaborations. Electronic questionnaire and open-source novel statistical programmes provided time and resource savings. The public health approach proved useful within the environmental health area with shoe leather field epidemiology, combined with statistical analysis and mathematical reasoning.
Posted in Decontamination Microbial, food bourne outbreak, Food Illness, Food Micro Blog, Food Microbiology, Food Microbiology Blog, Food Microbiology Research, Food Microbiology Testing, Food Virus, Foodborne Illness, foodborne outbreak, foodbourne outbreak, Illness, microbial contamination, Microbiological Risk Assessment, Microbiology, Microbiology Investigations, Norovirus, outbreak, Virus
We sought to determine which Salmonella serotypes cause illness related to the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States and to foods disproportionately eaten then (e.g., turkey). Using routine surveillance for 1998–2018 and a case-crossover design, we found serotype Reading to be most strongly associated with Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving, celebrated annually in the United States on the fourth Thursday of November, often brings together family and friends who eat specific traditional foods, such as mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie; the most prominent food eaten is turkey (1). In 2017, ≈45 million turkeys were produced for Thanksgiving, ≈18% of annual production (2). Turkey is popular across regions, races, sexes, and generations; 88% of persons in the United States report eating turkey during their Thanksgiving meal (1,3,4).
Foodborne Salmonella infections cause substantial illness and death in the United States: an estimated 1 million cases, 20,000 hospitalizations, and 400 deaths occur annually (5). Typical illness consists of diarrhea, fever, and abdominal pain lasting 3–7 days; only a minority of persons seek health care. Incubation typically ranges from 6 hours to 6 days (5). Salmonella outbreaks caused by serotypes Hadar and Saint Paul have been most commonly attributed to turkey, and serotypes Enteritidis, Heidelberg, and Typhimurium have been frequent causes of turkey-associated outbreaks (6). During 2015‒2020, Reading and Hadar were the serotypes most often isolated from turkeys (7); less is known about which serotypes cause turkey-associated sporadic Salmonella infections. We aimed to determine which Salmonella serotypes cause sporadic enteric infections after the Thanksgiving holiday and are most likely related to foods disproportionately eaten then, particularly turkey.
Posted in food bourne outbreak, Food Illness, Food Micro Blog, Food Microbiology, Food Microbiology Blog, Food Microbiology Research, Food Microbiology Testing, Foodborne Illness, foodborne outbreak, foodbourne outbreak, Illness, microbial contamination, Microbiological Risk Assessment, Microbiology, Microbiology Investigations, outbreak, Salmonella
Woody’s Pet Food Deli of Minneapolis, MN is recalling Raw Cornish Hen pet food “With Supplements” sticker due to a Salmonella health risk.
The product was distributed in the company’s retail stores in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and Woodbury, Minnesota.
Salmonella can affect animals eating the product and there is risk to humans from handling contaminated products, especially if they have not thoroughly washed their hands after having contact with the products or any surfaces exposed to these products.
FoodWorld 