A FAMILY-OF-FOUR say they fell seriously ill with food poisoning at the same Egyptian hotel where a British couple died under mysterious circumstances.
Sarah and Thomas McCormick paid £5,000 to take their children Paige, 15, and Lexi, nine, to the Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel in Hurghada, Egypt in August last year.
Tip Top Poultry of Rockmart, Georgia, is recalling about 135,810 pounds of fully cooked chicken products because they may be adulterated with Listeria monocytogenes bacteria. There is zero tolerance for this pathogen in ready-to-eat foods.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency notified FSIS on August 17, 2019, that a sample of this company’s product was confirmed positive for the presence of Listeria monocytogenes bacteria. No illnesses have been reported to date in connection with this issue in the United States.
The recalled product is frozen, diced, and mechanically separated ready-to-eat chicken that was produced on January 21, 2019. The label has “PACK DATE 01/21/19” The products that are recalled are on a spreadsheet provided by the USDA.
Provisional tests carried out by Public Health England have confirmed that the group who attended the Buckatree Hall Hotel near Wellington on August 7 were struck down by the sickness bug norovirus, which was unlikely to have been spread by hotel staff.
This means that the illness that causes sickness had been spread by someone carrying the viral infection.
PHE said it was “unlikely that this is a member of staff at the hotel” due to no other reports among other guests who ate the same food falling ill.
Ann Fleming, Public Health England regional spokesperson, said: “We have just received confirmation that the samples from our laboratories have tested positive for norovirus.
“No other organisms has been detected so far.
“All the food samples have tested negative.
“There are no reports of illness in guests outside of the wedding party.”
Norovirus, often associated with hospitals, is one of the most contagious causes of gastrointestinal illness.
PHE said further tests were due to be completed and that the hotel was due to be contacted with the provisional results.
There were no reports of sickness from any other party eating at the venue on the same day and it has had no further reports on subsequent days.
Another Hepatitis A Case in a restaurant in the USA!
A food worker at Ashiya Teriyaki, located at 1233 164th Street Southwest in Lynnwood, Washington, has been diagnosed with hepatitis A. The Snohomish Health District closed the restaurant on August 15, 2019. Anyone who ate at that venue between August 2 and August 15, 2019 may have been exposed to the virus. Officials say that this case doesn’t seem to be linked to the hepatitis A outbreak in Washington state.
Posted in Food Virus, Hepatitis A, Uncategorized, Virus
Ottawa, August 20, 2019 – The food recall warning issued on August 14, 2019 has been updated to include additional product information. This additional information was identified during the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA) food safety investigation.
Kananaskistrade is recalling Grained Salmon Caviar from the marketplace because it may permit the growth of Clostridium botulinum. Consumers should not consume the recalled product described below.
| Brand Name | Common Name | Size | UPC | Code(s) on Product |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| N/A (Cyrillic characters only) | Grained Salmon Caviar | 95 g | 8 85202 00044 3 | All units sold up to and including August 20, 2019 |
A suspected aflatoxicosis outbreak is being reported in Tanzania. The World Health Organization (WHO) was informed of the situation by the Ministry of Health in late June.
Since June 1, sporadic cases, presenting with symptoms and signs on abdominal distention, jaundice, vomiting, swelling of lower limbs, with a few cases of fever and headache, from Dodoma and Manyara Regions in Tanzania.
As of Aug. 11, a total of 53 cases and 8 deaths have been reported as from Chemba, Kondoa and Kiteto Districts. The situation is under investigation.
Aflatoxin is a potent toxin and a very serious health issue in many parts of the developing world. Major outbreaks have been seen in Africa, India, Malaysia and Taiwan over the years.
This mycotoxin is a natural toxin produced as a secondary metabolite to certain strains of the fungus Aspergillus, in particular Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus.
The toxin is then excreted onto plants or pre-processed foods, some intended for human consumption.
The number of reported cases of domestically acquired illnesses caused by cyclospora has increased from the previous month and remains elevated in the United States since May 1, 2019.
As of July 23, 2019, 580 laboratory-confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis were reported to CDC by 30 states, District of Columbia and New York City in people who became ill since May 1, 2019 and who had no history of international travel during the 14-day period before illness onset.
At this time, multiple clusters of cases associated with different restaurants or events are being investigated by state public health authorities, CDC, and FDA.
One multistate outbreak of Cyclospora infections has been linked to fresh basil imported from Siga Logistics de RL de CV of Morelos, Mexico . It is unknown at this time if other reported cases of Cyclospora infection in the United States this season are linked to fresh basil.
Posted in Cyclospora, food bourne outbreak, food contamination, food handler, Food Hygiene, Food Illness, Food Inspections, Food Micro Blog, Food Microbiology, Food Microbiology Blog, Food Pathogen, food recall, Food Safety, Food Safety Alert, Food Testing, foodborne disease, Foodborne Illness, foodborne outbreak, foodbourne outbreak, Parasite, Protozoan, Uncategorized
The purpose of this study was to inactivate Escherichia coli O157:H7, SalmonellaTyphimurium, and Listeria monocytogenes by continuous-type pulsed ohmic heatingin buffered peptone water (BPW) and tomato juice. First, BPW inoculated with the three pathogens were treated at different flow rates (0.2–0.4 LPM) and treatment voltages (9.43–12.14 Vrms/cm). Both heating rate of BPW and reduction rates of pathogens increased corresponding to decreased flow rate. Accordingly, higher numbers of pathogens survived at a higher flow rate (0.4 LPM). Increasing treatment voltage was an effective way to inactivate pathogens at 0.4 LPM, but the heating rate overly accelerated with increasing voltage adversely affecting food quality. Alternatively, increasing initial temperature by preheating can help inactivate pathogens in the early treatment stage without affecting heating rate. From the BPW experiments, we identified that treatment conditions such as flow rate, voltage, and initial temperature are important factors determining pathogen inactivation performance of continuous-type ohmic heating. When applied to tomato juice, 5 log reductions of all three pathogens were achieved by applying 12.14Vrms/cm ohmic heating with 0.2 LPM flow rate after preheating sample to 50 °C with a water bath. Quality aspects of color and lycopene content were observed, and a∗ and b∗ values decreased after treatment. Because preheating with additional equipment is inconvenient and occupies valuable space, we developed sequential three cylinder type ohmic heating. By applying the developed sequential ohmic heating, 5 log reductions were achieved for all three pathogens without preheating under the same treatment conditions. Therefore, we concluded that sequential continuous-type ohmic heating can be used utizied effectively to control foodborne pathogensby the juice industry.
RASFF – aflatoxins (B1 = 8.3; Tot. = 9.7 µg/kg – ppb) in blanched groundnut kernels from China in the UK
RASFF – aflatoxins (B1 = 3.60 µg/kg – ppb) in basmati rice from the Netherlands in Germany
RASFF – aflatoxins (B1 = 8.82; Tot. = 12.19 µg/kg – ppb) in ground cumin from Portugal in Luxembourg
RASFF – aflatoxins (B1 = 20; Tot. = 35 µg/kg – ppb) in nutmeg from Grenada in the Netherlands
RASFF – aflatoxins (B1 = 8.5; Tot. = 9 µg/kg – ppb) in groundnuts from the United States in Germany
RASFF – aflatoxins (B1 = 186; Tot. = 198 µg/kg – ppb) in peanuts in shell from the United States in Germany
RASFF – aflatoxins (B1 = 8; Tot. = 10 µg/kg – ppb) in coconut oil from India in switzerland
RASFF – aflatoxins (B1 = 7.5; Tot. = 8.6 µg/kg – ppb) in shelled groundnuts from the United States in the UK
RASFF – aflatoxins (B1 = 13.2; Tot. = 15.2 µg/kg – ppb) in almonds from the United States in Spain
RASFF – aflatoxins (B1 = 1.9 µg/kg – ppb) in peanut halva from Ukraine in Lithuania
RASFF – aflatoxins (B1 = 3.1 µg/kg – ppb) in groundnuts with shell from China in Spain
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