AHS started investigating a number of confirmed cases on March 29.
The outbreak was connected to some pork products sold and distributed by The Meat Shop at Pine Haven. Several other businesses were impacted since they used the affected pork products and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) issued a food recall.
In total, there were 42 lab-confirmed cases of E. coli linked to this outbreak.
Thirteen patients needed medical treatment at the hospital and one person “died likely due to infection with E. coli,” AHS said.
“Our thoughts remain with the family of the patient who died and all of those affected by this,” said Dr. Jasmine Hasselback, medical officer of health for the Edmonton zone. “We would like to thank our federal and provincial partners for their collaboration on this investigation.”
Since the outbreak began in late March, 40 cases of E. coli infection have been confirmed; 12 people have been hospitalized and one person has died.
The outbreak began when several people who visited the same restaurant in Edmonton become ill. Alberta Health Services soon traced the illnesses to pork products distributed by The Meat Shop in Pine Haven, Alb.
Edmonton’s Real Deal Meats says her family-run business has had to throw away thousands of dollars worth of meat.
That prompted a recall that has since expanded to include raw and frozen meat, ground pork, sausages and more. The products have only been distributed in Alberta.
An Edmonton law firm has already begun a $15-million lawsuit against The Meat Shop, on behalf of those who have become ill. But more than half a dozen businesses whose names have been caught up in the recall say their reputations are taking a hit too.
Alicia Boisvert of Edmonton’s Real Deal Meats says her family-run business has had to throw away thousands of dollars worth of meat — much of it returned by customers.
“We have to remove all the packaging… before the truck picks it up,” she told CTV Edmonton. “And then we have to pay for that (removal). Obviously, we’re going to have to figure that out as well.”
Another business whose reputation has taken a hit in this outbreak is Mama Nita’s Filipino Cuisine in southeast Edmonton – the restaurant where the outbreak began.
A full 21 of the 40 lab-confirmed cases have been linked to Mama Nita’s. The restaurant is still open but would not speak to CTV Edmonton about how their business is doing.
The other 19 illnesses — including the one involving the patient who died — have been linked to pork sold by Pine Haven’s retail partners.
The names of each business have been listed on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s website, their store fronts splashed on the news even if they didn’t sell any contaminated pork.
Real Deal Meats’ Boisvert says, just being associated with an E. coli outbreak has led to many sleepless night for her and her family.
At K&K Foodliner — another food retailer caught up in the recall — business is slower. Even though Pine Haven pork is no longer sold at the store, general manager Kevin Krause says some customers are avoiding pork altogether.
“This is our first recall in 62 years,” he told CTV Edmonton. “Regardless if it’s Pine Haven’s fault, it’s still our reputation on the line as well.”
I chatted with my 70ish-year-old mother the other day, and she said the rain had let up enough in Brantford, Ontario (that’s in Canada) so that she could cut the lawn.
She didn’t mention anything about tornadoes.
Ashifa Kassam of The Guardian reports a Canadian man’s commitment to lawn care has earned him international fame, after social media lit up with a photo of him mowing the lawn as a large tornado loomed on the horizon.
On Friday evening, as dark clouds began to gather near Three Hills, Alberta, Theunis Wessels paid little mind. Instead his thoughts were focused on the busy weekend that lay ahead for the family.
The list of chores he was hoping to get done included cutting the lawn. “I had to get it cut,” he told CTV News. “A lot of things happening over the weekend. Children were attending swim meets and some other sporting events over the weekend, so I had to make sure I got it done.”
He began mowing the lawn while his wife was napping. His nine-year-old daughter, nervous about the swirling twister gathering behind him, urged him to come inside. When he refused, she woke up his wife.
His wife, Cecilia Wessels, came out shortly after and snapped a few pictures, including one that captured her husband casually mowing the lawn against the dramatic backdrop of the tornado. It was the first time anyone in the family, originally from South Africa, had seen a tornado.
“I did ask him if he was coming inside with that thing in the clouds when I turned to come inside and he calmly said no,” she told the Associated Press.
AHS Public Health is aware of the illness, Kerry Williamson said in an emailed statement. “It has not been confirmed as norovirus,” he added.
A Suncor spokesperson said about 80 people at Fort Hills have reported symptoms.
No flights to or from the camps have been cancelled, Suncor said. But workers showing symptoms are being asked not to board flights but to remain in their rooms.
Williamson said outbreaks of this type are not unusual at this time of year, particularly at sites where people are living and working in close quarters.
He said inspectors visited the site Monday, and AHS Public Health provided information over the weekend, to help limit the spread of the illness.
Still a deafening silence from public health types over whether or not people are definitively sick or just sick from Cantran Meat Co. raw pork and pork organ products linked to an E, coli O157 outbreak in Alberta.
It is a long weekend in Canada – Queen Victoria’s birthday or something as an excuse to go camping in the cold and mark the start of summer – so don’t expect anything public soon.
But an astute conversationalist did send along this abstract from last month to help answer the question, what is Shiga-toxin producing E. coli doing in pig?
STEC strains, isolated in a previous study from fecal samples of late-finisher pigs, belonged to a total of 56 serotypes, including O15:H27, O91:H14, and other serogroups previously associated with human illness. The isolates were tested by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and a high-throughput real-time PCR system to determine the Shiga toxin (Stx) subtype and virulence-associated and putative virulence-associated genes they carried. Select STEC strains were further analyzed using a Minimal Signature E. coli Array Strip. As expected, stx2e (81%) was the most common Stx variant, followed by stx1a (14%), stx2d (3%), andstx1c (1%).
The STEC serogroups that carried stx2d were O15:H27, O159:H16 and O159:H-. Similar to stx2aand stx2c, the stx2d variant is associated with development of hemorrhagic colitis and hemolytic uremic syndrome, and reports on the presence of this variant in STEC strains isolated from swine are lacking. Moreover, the genes encoding heat stable toxin (estIa) and enteroaggregative E. coli heat stable enterotoxin-1 (astA) were commonly found in 50 and 44% of isolates, respectively. The hemolysin genes,hlyA and ehxA, were both detected in 7% of the swine STEC strains. Although the eae gene was not found, other genes involved in host cell adhesion, including lpfAO113 and paa were detected in more than 50% of swine STEC strains, and a number of strains also carried iha, lpfAO26, lpfAO157, fedA, orfA, and orfB.
The present work provides new insights on the distribution of virulence factors among swine STEC strains and shows that swine may carry Stx1a-, Stx2e-, or Stx2d-producing E. coli with virulence gene profiles associated with human infections.
Characterization of Shiga toxin subtypes and virulence genes in porcine Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli
Frontiers in Microbiology, 21 April 2016, http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2016.00574
Gian Marco Baranzoni, Pina M. Fratamico, Jayanthi Gangiredla, Isha Patel, Lori K. Bagi, Sabine Delannoy, Patrick Fach, Federica Boccia, Aniello Anastasio and Tiziana Pepe
“There have been no illnesses definitively linked to the consumption of these products.”
Yet the recall of Cantran Meat Co. raw pork and pork organ products from the marketplace due to possible E. coli O157:H7 contamination was triggered by findings of CFIA, Alberta Health Services, and Alberta Agriculture and Forestry during the investigation into a foodborne illness outbreak in Alberta.
Way to mention government agencies and snivel servants, way not to mention sick people.
The affected raw pork and pork organ products, supplied by Cantran Meat Co. Ltd., may have been transformed into raw muscle meat cuts, ground pork, sausages, and raw ready-to-eat products. The products, which have been sold fresh, have only been distributed in Alberta.
The affected products are known to have been sold or distributed by the companies from April 28, 2016 up to and including May 14, 2016. The products may have been sold pre-packaged or clerk-served, with or without a label. Consumers who are unsure if they have the affected products are advised to check with their retailer.
The lawsuit was against XL Foods Inc., which operated a meat-packing plant in southern Alberta during the tainted beef recall in the fall of 2012.
Lawyer Clint Docken says hundreds of people in Canada and the United States could apply by the Aug. 17 deadline.
Under the agreement, which refers to possible E. coli O157 contamination, XL Foods does not accept any wrongdoing or liability (it was all documented in a report).
XL Foods recalled more than 1.8 million kilograms of beef in Canada and the United States, and the plant in Brooks, Alta., was later sold to JBS Canada.
The lawsuit was launched against XL Foods based in Brooks, Alberta after 18 people got sick with E. coli after eating tainted meat in 2012.
The majority of the $4 million settlement will go to those poisoned by the meat, health care providers and claims will also be paid out to consumers who had to throw out the tainted products.
The settlement still has to be approved by the courts.
It’s nice that the bureaucrats at Alberta Agriculture are recommending that petting zoos implement a no-touch poultry policy for children under five years of age following a Salmonella outbreak linked to baby chicks, but what about the barriers? What about aerosolization of pathogens?
The outbreak has also been linked to illnesses in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) says all of the cases involved contact with live baby poultry, and most have been traced back to an unnamed Alberta poultry hatchery.
“The funny thing about Salmonella is that it causes noticeable disease in humans, but for a lot of animals, they’re not noticeably affected at all,” said Dr. James Talbot, Alberta Chief Medical Officer of Health.
There’s nothing funny about Salmonella.
Butterfield Acres, a popular petting zoo located northwest of Calgary, is no longer allowing patrons to have any contact with live poultry on site.
In a emailed statement to Global News, a spokesperson said:
“We are taking precautions by adopting a no-touch policy for the poultry, and by restricting access to all our poultry pens. We are asking all visitors to watch the birds through the fences, and to use this situation as an excellent reminder that good hand washing is important.”
Sorenne told me about plans to have a live animal farm with reptiles and baby chicks established at her school.
You see a cute chick, I see a Salmonella factory.
The Public Health Agency of Canada reports an outbreak of Salmonella infections in Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan with cases of human illness related to contact with live baby poultry originating from a hatchery in Alberta.
The risk to Canadians is low.
No idea how they came up with that statement, and of course, no info on the age of those affected (I’ll put my money on little kids).
