The Ministry for Primary Industries today reduced the area subject to a public health warning against collecting shellfish in the Kenepuru and inner Pelorus Sound. The warning now includes only Nydia Bay in the inner Pelorus Sound.
Routine tests on shellfish samples taken from this region still show levels of Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP) toxins above the safe limit of 0.8 mg/kg set by MPI. Anyone eating shellfish from this area is potentially at risk of illness.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Thinking of a dip in the Baltic Sea to cool off from the unusually scorching European summer? It’s too hot for that.
Authorities in Poland this week banned swimming at over 50 beaches along its Baltic coast, after hot weather led to the toxic growth of bacteria in the unusually warm sea. Baltic Sea water temperatures exceeded 23 degrees Celsius (73.4F) in some places Thursday.
Emergency water rescuers told vacationers on hot sandy beaches — from Swinoujscie in the west to Gdynia in the east — not to enter the sea, where thick green-brown cyanobacteria colonies have grown and pose a health threat.
Regional sanitation authorities have issued warnings that contact with the bacteria may cause allergies and rashes. Drinking contaminated water can also lead to serious digestive problems.
The Baltic Sea has not seen such intense growth of cyanobacteria for 12 years. It results from exceptionally high air temperatures of 34 degrees Celsius (93.2 degrees Fahrenheit) that have raised the temperatures of the usually cold Baltic.
A similar ban has been issued for some inland lakes and reservoirs, such as the Zegrze Resevoir near Warsaw.
In neighboring Germany, authorities issued a warning about the higher than usual growth of vibrio bacteria in the warm Baltic that can cause deadly illness in people with compromised immune systems. They said a 70-year-old man with a chronic illness died of vibrio infection over the weekend, and warned elderly people and those with chronic illnesses such as diabetes or HIV to avoid contact with the sea or brackish water.
In Finland, the Loviisa nuclear power plant said in a statement it briefly reduced energy production in both its units Wednesday to prevent the Baltic Sea water that cools its infrastructure from getting too warm. It said there was no danger to people or the environment.
Posted in Algal Blooms, Algal Toxin, Uncategorized, Vibrio
Ottawa, August 9, 2018 – Pinty’s Delicious Foods Inc. is recalling Pinty’s brand Oven Roasted Chicken Breast Strips (sold refrigerated) from the marketplace due to possible Listeria monocytogenes contamination. Consumers should not consume the recalled products described below.
| Brand Name | Common Name | Size | Code(s) on Product | UPC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pinty’s | Oven Roasted Chicken Breast Strips | 1 kg | BEST BEFORE 2018 AU 09 |
0 69094 62401 1 |
| Pinty’s | Oven Roasted Chicken Breast Strips | 1 kg | BEST BEFORE 2018 AU 15 |
0 69094 62401 1 |
In the early 2000s, Australia began to systematically use alcohol-based hand sanitizers in its hospitals. Infections caused by some types of drug-resistant bacteria, like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), subsequently went down. But to the surprise of medical researchers, disinfectants did not seem to do much to curtail the spread of bacterial infections caused by so-called superbug vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE); in fact, VRE infections in Australian hospitals started going up.
Posted in Uncategorized
Do you use your smartphone, tablet, or laptop to look at recipes while you’re cooking? Did it ever occur to you that you could be exposing your food – and yourself — to the bacteria that those personal electronic devices may harbor?
In a recent analysis of findings from the 2016 Food Safety Survey and related focus groups, scientists at FDA who study consumer food safety behavior explored this idea by evaluating how frequently consumers use these devices in the kitchen and how exactly they are using them. The next step is to determine if there is any danger of contamination from using these devices while preparing food.
Amy Lando, MPP, and Michael Bazaco, Ph.D., in the Office of Analytics and Outreach at FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), explain what they’ve learned, what they’re trying to find out, and what consumers can do to protect themselves.
Posted in Uncategorized
This work investigates the efficacy of plasma-activated water (PAW) and plasma-activated acidified buffer (PAAB) on Enterobacter aerogenes in aqueous system and fruit systems. Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species in PAW have been suggested to provide antimicrobial and acidifying effects, causing the pH of treated water to drop. To isolate the effect of pH in microbial inactivation and to study the interactive effects of pH and reactive species on microbial inactivation, a citrate-phosphate buffer (pH 3.1) and PAAB (citrate-phosphate) were studied. A 1.92 ± 0.70 log CFU/mL reduction in E. aerogenes was observed in PAW, while no reduction was achieved in the buffer, suggesting that the inactivation was due to the reactive species in PAW and not the acidic pH. PAAB achieved a 5.11 ± 0.63 log CFU/mL reduction, suggesting an interactive effect of reactive species and low pH. Electrical conductivity and oxidation-reduction potential measurements suggest potential mechanisms for the greater antimicrobial efficacy of PAAB over PAW. Four surfaces of increasing roughness (glass slides, grape tomatoes, limes, and spiny gourds) were spot inoculated and washed with distilled water, PAW, buffer, and PAAB for 3 min. The smoothest surface (glass) showed the highest reduction (6.32 ± 0.43 log CFU per surface), while the roughest surface (spiny gourd) showed a significantly lower reduction (2.52 ± 0.46 log CFU per surface) when treated with PAAB. For treatment with PAW, no significant differences were observed between glass slides, limes, and spiny gourds. With PAW treatment, significantly lower reduction was observed on spiny gourds (1.70 ± 0.21 log CFU per surface) than on grape tomatoes (4.65 ± 1.34 log CFU per surface). PAW and PAAB both showed potential for their use in fresh produce sanitation.
Posted in Uncategorized
University of Leicester researchers have shed new light on how bacteria sense nutrients in their environment — a finding that could provide important knowledge in the development of drugs and antibiotics to combat a range of diseases including tuberculosis.
The research team, led by Dr Helen O’Hare from the University of Leicester’s Department of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, has identified functions of a specific protein (Kinase G) that allow groups of bacteria such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis to detect amino acids in their surroundings, allowing the bacteria to regulate their metabolism in response to the available nutrients.
This protein is found in a large and important group of bacteria that includes the causative agent of tuberculosis in humans, as well as bacteria important for food and antibiotic production. The research identified the types of nutrients that can be sensed (aspartate and glutamate) as well as the sensor protein that recognises the nutrients.
This understanding of how bacteria detect and respond to amino acids in their local environment provides useful information to scientists in terms of understanding how bacteria function and how drugs could target specific proteins.
“Serine threonine protein kinases are found in all organisms, from humans to bacteria, but they are less well understood in bacteria,” says Dr O’Hare. “The findings represent one of the first instances in bacteria where it has been possible to identify the stimuli that trigger signaling.
“A bacterial pathogen can ‘taste’ the same amino acids that humans can. The sensor has a similar structure to human glutamate receptors but the way the information is transmitted into the bacterial cell is different and involves a different set of proteins, unlike signaling systems that have been studied previously.
“The research brings understanding about how a pathogen can sense the nutrients in its niches in the human body, but also broad understanding of how non-pathogenic bacteria sense their surroundings.”
The team was able to work out which proteins helped bacteria sense nutrients by deleting specific genes for signaling proteins from a bacterial genome. With the genes removed, they found that this disrupted the ability of the bacteria to sense nutrients, confirming the function of the genes.
Using X-ray crystallography at the Diamond Light Source at Harwell, they were then able to determine the structure of the sensor protein and predict which other bacteria may sense amino acids in the same way.
“Our findings have broader significance for other Actinobacterial pathogens, such as non-tuberculous Mycobacteria, as well as Actinobacteria used to produce billions of dollars of amino acids and antibiotics every year,” Dr O’Hare added.
Financial support for the research was provided by the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission and the Medical Research Council.
Posted in Uncategorized
RASFF –Salmonella enterica ser. Offa in sesame seeds from Uganda in Germany
RASFF –Salmonella (presence /25g) in hulled sesame seeds from Nigeria in the Netherlands
RASFF–Salmonella enterica ser. Isangi (in 1 out of 5 units /25g) in sesame seeds from Sudan in Greece
RASFF–Salmonella enterica ser. Ank (presence /25g) in sesame seeds from Sudan in Greece
RASFF–Salmonella (presence /25g) in fresh dill from Spain in France
RASFF–Salmonella (presence /25g) in live mussels (Mytilus edulis) from France in Italy
RASFF–Salmonella (presence /25g) in black pepper from Vietnam in Spain
RASFF –Salmonella enterica ser. Mbandaka (presence /25g) and Salmonella enterica ser. Tennessee (presence /25g) in sesame seeds from Sudan in Greece
RASFF –Salmonella enterica ser. Braenderup (presence /25g) in mug cake chocolate from Hungary in the Netherlands
RASFF-aflatoxins (B1 = 10.1; Tot. = 12.4 µg/kg – ppb) in shelled almonds from the United States in Spain
RASFF-aflatoxins (B1 = 2.8; Tot. = 3.4 µg/kg – ppb) in groundnuts from China in the UK
RASFF-aflatoxins (B1 = 39.0; Tot. = 44.9 µg/kg – ppb) in raw pistachio kernels from Turkey in Greece
RASFF -aflatoxins (B1 = 23.6; Tot. = > 24 µg/kg – ppb) in shelled almonds from the United States in Spain
