Yes, your cat is trying to kill you: Antibiotic-resistant Salmonella found in Australian cat

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Douglas Powell

Microbiology is not a Marvel comic strip: Not every bacteria is a superbug.

Resistance is not futile.

But it is normal.

A drug-resistant salmonella strain that could infect humans and livestock has been found in Australia for the first time.

The salmonella superbug was discovered in an infected cat after it was taken from a shelter to a Sydney vet last year with a suspected gut infection, ABC News reported.

The ‘highly transferrable’ bacteria is resistant to carbapenems- a life-saving drug used in Australian hospitals.

This rare drug resistance could pose a serious threat to public health, experts believe.

‘This is the first time that a salmonella strain with resistance to most drugs has been reported in any Australian domestic animal and it is a significant concern to public health, Dr Sam Abraham told the publication.

Mr Abraham led a study into the risks of the dangerous salmonella strain with a team of veterinary and medical researchers.

He describes the bacteria as a ‘superbug’ because it has picked up a piece of DNA that gives it ‘super powers or resistance to about nine classes of drugs that we usually use to treat humans and animals’.

The study led by Abraham has been accepted for publication in Scientific Reports.

So what? It’s not like other mortals can see it. Publication before press release. Otherwise, Cake has it covered (NSFV).

Same with the U.S. election.

But is it (microbiologically) safe?

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Douglas Powell

Mangoes are coming into season.

Australian egg producers are flogging studies saying that eggs are OK to eat every day.

But are they safe?

And the pork producers have a national 6-2-2 campaign:

Discover the secret to the perfect pork steak with our new 6-2-2 campaign.

Take a 2cm pork steak (sirloin, leg, scotch fillet or medallion).
Pre-heat a pan, griddle pan or BBQ plate just like you would for any other steak.
Cook the pork steak on one side, without turning, for 6 minutes.
Turn it over once and allow it to cook for 2 more minutes. This method will cook the steak to just white but if you prefer it cooked pink, just reduce the cooking time.
Remove the steak from the pan and rest for 2 minutes. Resting allows the juices to settle and produces a more tender and juicy result.
Remember the simple rule for next time: 6 minutes on one side, 2 minutes on the other and 2 minutes to rest = the 10 minute pork steak.

(No accounting for variations in cooking devices, just use a damn thermometer and take out the guesswork.)

All at the same time as Australia’s annual food safety week began with this year’s theme , raw and risky (sounds familiar).

The NSW Food Authority is throwing its support behind the Food Safety Information Council’s Food Safety Week 2016 that commences today Sunday 6 November, urging NSW consumers not to become one of the estimated 4.1 million people affected by food poisoning each year in Australia.

Dr Lisa Szabo, NSW Food Authority CEO, said the theme of this year’s Australian Food Safety Week “Raw and risky” is a timely and apt reminder that some foods carry more risk than others.

“Recent years have seen major food poisoning outbreaks linked to risky raw foods such as unpasteurised cow’s milk, raw egg dishes, bean/seed sprouts, frozen berries and lettuce,” Dr Szabo said.

Barf’s up: South Bank Surf Club faces 32 charges after 28 sickened with raw egg aioli

Posted on November 6, 2016 by Douglas Powell

On Sept. 23, 2015, Brisbane’s South Bank Surf Club allegedly made up a large batch of raw-egg-based aioli sauce and served it for seven days.

At least 28 diners were sickened.

At the time, the manager of the club said the cause was “a bad batch of eggs’’ provided by a supplier. They said the eggs had been used in sauces served with seafood platters.

“We’ve been caught out, unfortunately. Our customers’ wellbeing is our priority and anyone with concerns can get in touch with us,” they said. “To rectify the problem, we are not making sauces in-house.’’

This is a common refrain in Australia.

We, the chefs, would never put the health of our customers in harm’s way, yet they continue to do so with the line, we got a bad batch of eggs.

Now, Brisbane City Council health inspectors have filed a complaint in Brisbane Magistrates Court accusing the club, owned by Brisbane hospitality king Bevan Bickle, of letting the aioli and other sauces sit kitchen benches for up to three hours without refrigeration on the day they were used in meals including fish and chips, burgers and pulled pork sandwiches between September 23 and October 1 last year.

Court documents state aioli is a “potentially hazardous food” because “pathogenic microorganisms” can grow due to the raw egg and it needs to be refrigerated.

The club faces 32 charges of breaching food safety laws.

When inspector Heath Vogler visited the restaurant on October 16 he alleges the aioli was kept at 11C.

The council summons filed in court states aioli must be stored below 5C to minimise the growth of poisonous bacteria.

The case returns to court on December 23. The restaurant has not entered a plea.

A table of Australian egg outbreaks is available at https://barfblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/raw-egg-related-outbreaks-australia-10-9-15.xlsx

Pinto defense: We meet all standards, after 1 dead and six sickened at Perth childcare

Posted on October 26, 2016 by Douglas Powell

In the Aussie form of see, hear and speak no evil, evidence has emerged that a child has died following an outbreak of gastro at a lower North Shore (Perth) childcare centre.

Six children at Little Zak’s Academy in Artarmon — aged between 11 months and four years — developed high fevers and vomiting over the past week caused by rotavirus gastroenteritis, health authorities have confirmed.

But a seventh child died, with the causes so far unknown, although the death is not being directly attributed to the outbreak.

Northern Sydney Public Health Unit director Dr Michael Staff said four of the sick children had to be admitted to hospital.

“Tragically, another child who also attends the centre died in hospital on October 23, but at this stage it appears unrelated to the gastroenteritis outbreak,” he said.

He said they were working with specialist paediatricians to understand the cause of the child’s death.

Parents were tonight in shock over the news of the death.

An email from the local health district informing them of what had happened was only sent through this afternoon.

Michael Kendall, father to five-year-old Charlotte, said that he was “furious” and would not be bringing his child back to the child care centre.

He said the centre should have been shut down during the outbreak — and that he only just found out about what had happened.

“It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard in my life, I only found about it 15 minutes ago, I just heard that a child has died.

“If I knew my child wouldn’t have been here.

“I used to run a big centre down at the snow and our first priority was to take care of people especially kids, once you have an outbreak you’re supposed to tell the parents and shut the premises down.”

A spokesman for the centre said Public Health Unit advice was that “the outbreak appears to be under control and it is safe for children to continue to attend the Centre.”

Little Zak’s said in a statement, “Please be assured our Artarmon Centre is fully accredited and compliant with all health and regulatory requirements, and we endeavour at all times to operate to the highest standards of care and hygiene. As confirmed by the Northern Sydney Local Health District, we will continue to work closely with its Public Health Unit to ensure these high standards are maintained.”

Pinto defense.

Blocking Campy’s ability to latch on

Posted on October 26, 2016 by Douglas Powell

A team at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, has found a way to disable one sensor of Campylobacter jejuni, that stops it from being able to attach to its host and therefore cause gastroenteritis.

The findings were published in Nature Communications and show a wide range of possibilities for tackling various strands of gastro, lead researcher Professor Victoria Korolik said.

“We conducted the study in chickens by disabling this particular sensor (CcrG) and we found that it does reduce the level of colonisation,” she said.

“We found this sensor (CcrG) does not occur in all strains of this bacteria, only in about 10 or 11 per cent, but those strains tend to be those isolated from really sick people such as those that have meningitis as a consequence of gastro.”

Professor Korolik described the sensor as a type of “hand” that grabbed onto a specific molecule within the stomach of its host that could lead the bacteria to cells from which to colonise and cause gastroenteritis.

“This sensor grabs a molecule, it grabs it and holds it like you would a ball in your hand and that molecule tells the bacteria they are on the right track and moving towards the right cell,” she said.

“They also have a part that goes inside the cell and sends a signal – to go forward or turn around depending on what is happening.

“Because it can find the human cells efficiently and quickly, it can attack and cause disease.”

Professor Korolik said an antimicrobial drug that acted as a synthetic “ball” could block the sensor and prevent it from finding the cell.

“If you block the hand part of the receptor, the signal is stuck and the bacteria goes around in circle and can’t find its target,” she said.

“If we can design a ‘ball’ that is a better fit than the natural one then we can block the receptor – if the bacteria can’t find its direction because it doesn’t know what else is on the environment because it is blocked and it goes around and around and is eventually passed out.”

Professor Korolik said every bacteria has a variety of sensory structures that are separate from each other which allows one sensor of one bacteria to be targetted without impacting on existing gut flora.

Campylobacter jejuni bacteria is the most common cause of food poisoning in Australia and hospitalised more than 3200 people in 2014, according to Queensland Health.

More than 500 cases have been reported in Queensland in the past month, with the gastrointestinal disease impacting 16,436 across Australia this year so far, according to the national department of health.

14 sick: Laksa food poisoning near Darwin

Posted on October 19, 2016 by Douglas Powell

Eoin Blackwell of the Huffington Post reports that Northern Territorians looking for a spicy meal this week received a different kind of kick, with 14 people struck down by food poisoning traced to a laksa vendor.

The NT Department of Health on Wednesday issued a warning about eating laksa purchased at two recent Mindil Beach Markets following a cluster of food poisoning in the Darwin area.

The source of the outbreak has been identified and the stall shut down for rest of the market season.

“We are warning the public not to consume any laksa which was purchased at Mindil Beach markets last Thursday or Sunday evenings,” Acting head of the Centre for Disease Control, Dr Peter Markey, said in a statement.

“Any laksa which was purchased from Mindil Beach on those nights and is still in your fridge or freezer should be disposed of immediately.”

83 sickened: Long list of food safety failures identified at Adelaide InterContinental, source of Salmonella outbreak

Posted on October 8, 2016 by Douglas Powell

Katrina Stokes of The Advertiser reports that documents released under the freedom of information act highlighted numerous potential problems with the Intercontinental’s cooking practices, which left 83 people ill with salmonella poisoning after eating at the Riverside restaurant on Sunday, July 31. These include the known safety risk of using the same whisk in both cooked and raw eggs.

An Adelaide city council report, obtained by The Advertiser from Duncan Basheer Hannon, confirms the common link between the affected individuals was the consumption of scrambled eggs. Test results identified Salmonella Typhimurium.

An investigation led by the council in early august concluded a long list of “issues” with cooking processes at the hotel.

They included:

A whisk used throughout the (scrambled egg) cooking process from a raw egg mix to a cooked mix.

Scrambled eggs were continually topped up and not fully replaced between the hours of 6.30am and 9.15am.

Serving spoons were replaced only when deemed necessary, posing a potential risk for cross-contamination.

The stick blender used to mix raw eggs was inadequately sanitised.

The nightshift chef responsible for preparing the raw-egg mix did not adequately understand correct cleaning and sanitising processes.

Scrambled egg reheat temperatures were not recorded on July 31 and there was no thermometer to record temperatures because it was “lost three months ago.”

A plastic container storing raw egg slurry had a damaged lid and rough internal surfaces, which were identified as difficult to clean and sanitise.

Intercontinental Adelaide general manager Colin McCandless said the report was a “hypothesis.”

Mr McCandless said the hotel had produced a score of “100 per cent” in a recent external audit of food safety procedures.

Audits often mean little.

That’s the same McCandless who in early Augest said it was ‘absolutely safe’ to eat at the hotel.

The hotel’s $37 full breakfast buffet at the Riverside restaurant includes scrambled eggs.

Norovirus GII.4 a new strain

Posted on September 30, 2016 by Douglas Powell

A norovirus recombinant GII.P4_NewOrleans_2009/GII.4_Sydney_2012 was first detected in Victoria, Australia, in August 2015 at low frequency, and then re-emerged in June 2016, having undergone genetic changes.

Analysis of 14 years’ surveillance data from Victoria suggests a typical delay of two to seven months between first detection of a new variant and occurrence of a subsequent epidemic linked to that variant. We consider that the current recombinant strain has the potential to become a pandemic variant.

A norovirus intervariant GII.4 recombinant in Victoria, Australia, June 2016: The next epidemic variant?

Euro Surveill. 2016;21(39):pii=30353. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2016.21.39.30353

L Bruggink, M Catton, J Marshall

http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=22594

Mettwursts and pepperoni made by Australian smallgoods firm recalled

Posted on September 26, 2016 by Douglas Powell

Brad Crouch of The Advertiser reports that mettwurst and pepperoni manufactured by Barossa Valley smallgoods firm Linke’s Central Meats is being recalled amid potential contamination fears.

Following food safety checks by the Department of Primary Industries and Regions

South Australia (PIRSA), three types of mettwursts and one pepperoni from the Nuriootpa-based Linke’s Central Meats have been recalled and SA Health is advising people not to consume them.

SA Health has not received any reports of illness associated with these smallgoods but PIRSA is now investigating as routine food safety checks have been unable to verify the safety of the firm’s manufacturing processes for these mettwurst and pepperoni products.

Linke’s Central Meats can be found at South Australian Foodlands, the Loxton IGA and independent smallgoods stores.

Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) will be issuing a nationwide recall for the product and further information about the recall can be found on the FSANZ website.

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