With a 6-week incubation period for Listeria and a 30 per cent fatality rate, the numbers are unfortunately going to grow.
NSW Health reports there are now 13 sick and 4 dead from Listeria linked to rockmelons (cantaloupe) from a farm in Nerico, NSW.
Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes) causes the third highest number of foodborne illness deaths annually. L. monocytogenes contamination of sliced deli meats at the retail level is a significant contributing factor to L. monocytogenes illness. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Environmental Health Specialists Network (EHS-Net) conducted a study to learn more about retail delis’ practices concerning L. monocytogenes growth and cross-contamination prevention.
This article presents data from this study on the frequency with which retail deli refrigerator temperatures exceed 41°F, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-recommended maximum temperature for ready-to-eat food requiring time and temperature control for safety (TCS) (such as retail deli meat). This provision was designed to control bacterial growth in TCS foods. This article also presents data on deli and staff characteristics related to the frequency with which retail delis refrigerator temperatures exceed 41°F.
Data from observations of 445 refrigerators in 245 delis showed that in 17.1% of delis, at least one refrigerator was >41°F. We also found that refrigeration temperatures reported in this study were lower than those reported in a related 2007 study. Delis with more than one refrigerator, that lacked refrigerator temperature recording, and had a manager who had never been food safety certified had greater odds of having a refrigerator temperature >41°F.
The data from this study suggest that retail temperature control is improving over time. They also identify a food safety gap: some delis have refrigerator temperatures that exceed 41°F. We also found that two food safety interventions were related to better refrigerated storage practices: kitchen manager certification and recording refrigerated storage temperatures. Regulatory food safety programs and the retail industry may wish to consider encouraging or requiring kitchen manager certification and recording refrigerated storage temperatures.
Food Safety Practices Linked with Proper Refrigerator Temperatures in Retail Delis
02.mar.18
Foodborne Pathogens and Disease
Brown Laura G. , Hoover Edward Rickamer , Faw Brenda V. , Hedeen Nicole K. , Nicholas David , Wong Melissa R. , Shepherd Craig , Gallagher Daniel L. , and Kause Janell R.
https://doi.org/10.1089/fpd.2017.2358
South Africa is, according to the UN World Health Organisation (WHO), currently in the middle of the biggest listeria outbreak ever seen.
The country’s Government has blamed producers of cold meat products for delays in tracing the cause.
“This is the largest ever recorded outbreak of this severe form of listeriosis globally,” Peter K. Ben Embarek, who manages the WHO International Food Safety Authorities Network, said.
The Government, which has been criticised for taking too long to find the cause, on Sunday linked the outbreak to a meat product known as “polony” made by Tiger’s Enterprise Food.
It also said it was investigating a plant owned by RCL Foods that makes a similar product, whose shares also slid on Monday before recovering.
Both companies, which say they are cooperating with the authorities, suspended processed meat production at their plants after health authorities ordered a recall of cold meats associated with the outbreak from outlets at home and abroad.
South Africa’s Health Ministry said the source was found after pre-school children fell ill from eating polony products traced to processed meat producers.
“The meat processing industry was not cooperating for months … they did not bring the samples as requested”, the Government’s communications director, Popo Maja,said.
“We had long suspected that listeria can be found in these products.”
“It is not that we are incompetent, or that we have inadequate resources,” Mr Maja said when asked why it had taken more than a year to find the cause of listeria.
He said all companies in the industry were being examined.
South Africa’s processed meat market grew about 8 per cent in 2017 to a retail value of $529 million, according to Euromonitor International.
Tiger Brands has a 35.7 percent market share, followed by Eskort Bacon Co-Operative with 21.8 percent.
Rhodes Food, RCL Foods and Astral Foods each have less than 5 percent.
Tiger Brands, Eskort, RCL Foods, Rhodes and Astral said they had complied with all requests from the health authorities.
Lawrence McDougall, the chief executive of Tiger Brands, said there was no direct link between the deaths and its cold meat products.
“We are unaware of any direct link,” Mr McDougall told a media briefing.
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi had said on Sunday the outbreak had been traced to a Tiger Brands factory in the northern city of Polokwane.
The authorities are also examining a second Tiger Brands factory and have not said when they could conclude tests on RCL Foods, which has a plant under investigation.
Rhodes said it produced processed canned meat, different from the cold processed meat made by rivals.
Astral said it produced fresh and frozen chicken, not polonies and items linked to the outbreak.
Both those firms said their products were safe.
Fast food chain owner Famous Brands said it was recalling ready-to-eat meat products from its retail outlets.
The South African Health Minister has told citizens not to consume any ready-to-eat processed meat due to the risk of cross-contamination.
The announcement prompted a frenzied clearing and cleaning of the shelves by local supermarkets chains, which also urged consumers to return the meats for refunds.
Neighbouring states acted swiftly — Zambia banned imports of South African processed meat, dairy products, vegetables and fruit.
Mozambique and Namibia halted imports of the processed meat items and Botswana said it was recalling them.
Malawi stepped up screening of South African food imports.
Dozens of customers lined up outside a Tiger Brands outlet with bags of cold meat products and demanded their money back.
“I lost trust with Enterprise … I’ll be scared even if they say this problem is solved. … [and] would rather go back to peanut butter and jam,” 37-year-old Tshepo Makhura said.
“I hope my grandchildren are going to be OK because we gave them food over the weekend from these parcels,” Deline Smith, a 57-year-old housewife, said.
Analysts said profits at the two firms were unlikely to be hit hard.
Standard Bank analyst Sumil Seeraj estimated the recall would cut operating profit at Tiger Brand’s value added foods division by 6 per cent at most.
The Enterprise unit of Tiger Brands had “a very strong brand in meat”, he said.
“In the short term consumers will switch to other forms of protein.”
South Africans were told on Sunday not to consume ready-to-eat processed meat as the government identified the source of a listeria outbreak that has killed 180 people as a cold meat product made by the country’s biggest consumer foods group.
The meat, known as “polony“, made by Tiger Brands unit Enterprise Food and by RCL Foods, would be recalled from stores, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said (it’s similar to balony).
“We advise members of the public to avoid all processed meat products that are sold as ready-to-eat,” Motsoaledi said, adding that, due to the risk of cross-contamination, all such foods were a potential health hazard.
“We can now conclude scientifically that the source of the present outbreak is the Enterprise Food production facility located in Polokwane,” Motsoaledi told a briefing at the offices of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases.
Tiger Brands said it was cooperating with authorities and RCL Foods said it would suspend all production of its Rainbow Polony brand.
Motsoaledi said although RCL Foods had not been identified as a source of the outbreak, a facility owned by the firm was under investigation. Inquiries were ongoing at a second facility run by Enterprise Foods to establish if it too had contributed.
The outbreak has caused 180 fatalities and 948 reported cases since January 2017.
Tiger Brands spokeswoman Nevashnee Naicker said: “We are all extremely concerned by listeriosis – we all want to find the source or sources of listeriosis, together with the government.”
RCL Foods chief legal officer Stephen Heath said the company was recalling its polony products even though test results were still pending.
“RCL Foods is sharing all results from its testing, both internally and externally, with the relevant authorities,” Heath said. “We will continue to take every precaution to safeguard our products as well as our consumers.
South African supermarket operator Pick n Pay said it had withdrawn the products from its shelves.
On Sept. 9, 2011, reports first surfaced of an outbreak of Listeria linked to cantaloupe – known as rock melons in Australia — grown in Colorado. Already two were dead and seven others sick.
By the end of the outbreak, 33 people were killed and at least 140 sickened.
On Aug. 17, 2012, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control announced an outbreak of Salmonella linked to cantaloupe that ultimately killed three people and sickened 270 in 26 states.
In Australia, a third death has now been linked to the Listeria-in-rockmelon outbreak, and the number of sick people has risen to 12.
Already, an Australian rockmelon grower is saying “misinformation” about the listeria outbreak will have a negative impact on growers.
The only misinformation – or fake news – is the lack of information to regain consumer confidence and trust.
Sadly, the number of dead and sick will probably grow, because Listeria has an incubation period of up to six weeks. The melon you ate five weeks ago could make you sick with listeriosis tomorrow.
This is not misinformation, it’s biology.
A table (that needs to be updated) of cantaloupe-or-rockmelon-related outbreaks is available here.
I’m not a fan of the guac, ever since a hungover former partner spewed vile smelling green stuff at the side of the road decades ago.
And I’m wary of fresh herbs, based on previous outbreaks.
So is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration which on Feb. 23, 2018, revealed details on just how many bacteria are hiding in fresh, store-bought herbs. The agency plans to continue testing herbs through 2019 to thoroughly assess their “rates of bacterial contamination.”
The plan is to test 1,600 samples of items “typically eaten without having undergone a ‘kill step,’ such as cooking, to reduce or eliminate bacteria.” These items include fresh cilantro, parsley, and basil.
This first round of results revealed that of the 139 fresh herb samples tested, four tested positive for salmonella and three contained E. coli bacteria.
The Packer noted the testing found no pathogens in the U.S. herbs versus imported herbs.
In the same period, the FDA found that three of the 58 U.S.-processed avocado products that were tested had listeria, and one of the 49 imported samples had listeria.
From 1996 to 2015, the FDA linked 2,699 illnesses and 84 hospitalizations to fresh herbs.
The FDA also plans to sample processed avocado for similar reasons – from 2005 to 2015, 525 illnesses were linked to avocados in 12 separate outbreaks. Of 107 avocado and guacamole samples in the initial results, four contained listeria. Avocados, the FDA notes, “have a high moisture content and a non-acidic pH level, conditions that can support the growth of harmful bacteria.”
About a week ago I was chatting with our contractor – we really spend too much time chatting instead of working, and Amy often intervenes – and somehow we got on about the microbiological risks of cantaloupe (or rockmelon as they call it here).
This morning Australians awoke to the news from the NSW Food Authority that two people have died and eight were sick from Listeria-linked to cantaloupe (not the 3 dead and 7 sick reported earlier).
All states and territories are working together to investigate the outbreak and to date they have identified ten cases in elderly patients in NSW (six), Victoria (one) and Queensland (three) with onset of illness notification dates between 17 January and 9 February 2018. All 10 cases consumed rockmelon prior to their illness.
The outbreak has been linked to a grower in Nericon NSW. The company voluntarily ceased production on Friday 23 February 2018, shortly after being notified of a potential link to illness and is working proactively with the Authority to further investigate how any contamination could have occurred in order to get back into production as soon as possible.
Any affected product is being removed from the supply chain, so consumers can be assured rockmelons currently available on shelves are not implicated in this outbreak, but people may already have listeria-infected rockmelons in their homes purchased at an earlier time.
Contaminated water, fertiliser, contact with animals or insufficient cleaning of rockmelons prior to sale are all risk factors for melons becoming contaminated.
The contamination is on the fruit’s skin, not in the flesh.
NSW Health director of communicable diseases Vicki Shepherd said, “If there are levels of listeria on the skin then when you cut it, it can be transferred into the surface where you then eat it.”
Our contractor said today, did you see the news, guess Doug knows a thing.
It’s easy to know a thing if you pay attention. Rockmelons have been repeatedly linked to previous cases of listeria, including an outbreak that killed 33 Americans in 2011.
A table (that needs to be updated) of cantaloupe-or-rockmelon-related outbreaks is available here.
Listeria monocytogenes has been found on a number of rockmelons from a supplier in New South Wales (NSW, that’s in Australia).
The discovery comes after reports of an outbreak of listeriosis in the Australian state, following an unexpected increase in cases in January and February.
While the link between the farm and the illness cases is not yet conclusive, PMA Australia-New Zealand (PMA A-NZ) said there was sufficient circumstantial evidence to warn at-risk consumers not to consume rockmelon.
“At least 10 people have become infected including three deaths,” PMA A-NZ said in a release. “All cases are people in high risk groups, which includes those who are older, pregnant or have underlying health conditions,”
The NSW Food Authority and NSW Health are currently investigating the outbreak.
Listeriosis is caused by consuming food contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. Listeria is a bacteria that survives and grows on a number of foods including rockmelon, vegetable salads and fruit salads, cold meats, raw seafood, soft cheeses and seed sprouts.
My wife and I were discussing this morning the horror that is occurring in South Africa regarding the Listeria outbreak. My wife is a professional dancer for an African modern dance group-NAfro in Winnipeg (Canada) and very interested in African culture. I have had the pleasure of speaking with her choreographer a number of times regarding issues in Africa (his home) which are primarily political in nature. Interesting stuff.
The World Health Organization has sent a food safety expert to South Africa to assist in identifying the cause of the Listeria outbreak. Apparently, it has been recommended that South Africa should have approximately 5000 environmental health practitioners; currently they only have 2000 to safeguard public health, clearly not enough.
Wendy Knowler of Times Live reports
Would you be able to list every single thing you’ve eaten in the past month?
That’s what victims of South Africa’s massive listeriosis outbreak – the biggest on record globally – are being asked to do by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in an attempt to pinpoint the source.
The number of confirmed listeriosis cases is now 872, and 164 of those have died – up from 107 last week. The current mortality rate is a staggering 27%.
Of those confirmed cases, 43% were babies of less than a month old – pregnant women being 20 times more likely to get listeriosis than other healthy adults.
Contracted by eating food containing the listeria pathogen, listeriosis is by far the most deadly of food-borne diseases. Given the scale of our mystery outbreak, it has led to what one delegate termed “listeria hysteria”, at a listeriosis workshop hosted by the South African Association of Food Science and Technology (SAAFoST) in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
While patés, soft cheeses and guacamole have been found to be the source in listeriosis outbreaks in other countries, our outbreak is unlikely to be a “high-end luxury food item”, said the NICD’s Dr Juno Thomas at the workshop.
“So far, our epidemiological investigation team has interviewed about 60 listeriosis victims to find out what they ate, day by day, during the month before they became symptomatic, in an attempt to identify patterns of consumption and indicate what we can eliminate,” Thomas said. “None had eaten smoked fish, for example.”
Food safety expert and SAAFoST president Lucia Anelich said given that a single, unique “homegrown” strain of listeriosis was identified in more than 90% of the confirmed cases, it was likely that the source was a single food product or range of food products consumed often and by both rich and poor across South Africa.
“Cold meats, for example, range from viennas and polony to more expensive slices of ham,” she said.
As listeria is killed during the cooking process, the culprit is thought to be a ready-to-eat food, fruit, or vegetables.
Attorney Janus Luterek told workshop delegates that his work had led him to believe that the offending product would be traced back to irrigation water that was not properly treated. A few food scientists in the room agreed with him.
“Keep your insurance up to date,” Luterek told the attending food producers, “because when the claims come they will be huge, as in a Boeing 737 crashing and everyone on board dying.”
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has sent a food safety expert, an epidemiologist with listeriosis experience and a communication specialist to South Africa to help identify the source of the outbreak.
A WHO spokesman was quoted in industry publications this week as saying the body was working on a “strong lead”, with laboratory results pending.
Speaking at the workshop, Dr Thomas said food safety legislation was fragmented, outdated and inappropriate for South Africa.
“We need a dramatic overhaul of our legislation and the entire food safety system,” she said.
For example, she said, there were fewer than 2,000 environmental health practitioners, responsible for monitoring all food outlets from restaurants to informal vendors, but the WHO recommended that South Africa needed 5,000 of them.
Several presenters mentioned the need for better cooperation between the government departments and organisations responsible for food safety – including health; agriculture, forestry and fisheries; trade and industry; and the Consumer Goods Council.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is alerting pet owners to a history of four recalls of and multiple complaints associated with Darwin’s Natural and ZooLogics pet foods, manufactured by Arrow Reliance Inc., dba Darwin’s Natural Pet Products, over the period from October 17, 2016 to February 10, 2018. In each instance, the company recalled these products after being alerted to positive findings of Salmonella and/or Listeria monocytogenes in samples of their raw pet food products.
In its most recent recall, on February 10, 2018, Arrow Reliance/Darwin’s Natural recalled ZooLogics Duck with Vegetable Meals for Dogs (Lot #41957) and ZooLogics Chicken with Vegetable Meals for Dogs (Lot #41567) because the products may be contaminated with Salmonella and therefore have the potential to cause salmonellosis in humans and animals. The company states that it only sells its products online through direct-to-consumer sales.
The FDA has investigated six complaints of illness and death in animals that have eaten the recalled products.
Arrow Reliance/Darwin’s Natural has notified its customers directly of the recalls, but has so far not issued any public notification announcing this or any of the previous recalls.
This issue is of particular public health importance because Salmonella can make both people and animals sick.
As part of an ongoing investigation into complaints associated with products manufactured by Arrow Reliance/Darwin’s Natural of Tukwila, WA, the FDA has confirmed that new samples of Darwin’s Natural Pet Products raw pet foods have tested positive for Salmonella. These raw pet foods include ZooLogics Duck with Vegetable Meals for Dogs Lot #41957 and ZooLogics Chicken with Vegetable Meals for Dogs Lot #41567.
The latest recall was triggered by a complaint of an adult dog that had recurring diarrhea over a nine-month period. The dog tested positive for Salmonella from initial testing by the veterinarian and by follow-up testing by the FDA’s Veterinary Laboratory Investigation and Response Network (Vet-LIRN). The Darwin’s Natural raw pet food that the dog had been fed was also positive for Salmonella.
Arrow Reliance/Darwin’s Natural is aware of the dog’s illness and the positive results and initiated a recall on February 10, 2018 by directly notifying its customers via email. The firm has not issued a public recall notice.
Since October 2016, Arrow Reliance/Darwin’s Natural has initiated four recalls and had six reported complaints (some referring to more than one animal) associated with their raw pet food products, including the death of one kitten from a severe systemic Salmonella infection. The Salmonella isolated from the kitten was analyzed using whole genome sequencing and found to be indistinguishable from the Salmonella isolated from a closed package from the same lot of Darwin’s Natural cat food that the kitten ate.
In addition to reports of illnesses associated with Salmonella contamination in the products, the FDA is aware of complaints of at least three animals who were reportedly injured by bone shards in the Darwin’s Natural raw pet food products.