31 sick: Restaurants ordered to cook all oysters from B.C.

Posted on August 13, 2015 by Douglas Powell

Vancouver Coastal Health has ordered restaurants to stop serving raw oysters from local waters in response to a rising tide of foodborne illness caused by vibrio parahaemolyticus, a bacteria that naturally occurs in shellfish.

According to an advisory issued Wednesday, 31 cases connected to raw oysters have been reported in B.C. so far this year, although the actual number is likely much higher because not all cases are reported.

Symptoms include diarrhea, cramps, vomiting and fever that can last up to a week.

VCH has ordered restaurants to cook all B.C. oysters and said only oysters from outside the province can be served raw. The order comes as the BC Centre for Disease Control issued a similar warning asking consumers to avoid eating locally harvested oysters raw.

“Normally we see between eight and 10 cases in (June and July),” said Marsha Taylor, an epidemiologist with the BCCDC. “So there has been a really notable increase this year.”

35 sick: raw is risky in rising temperatures in BC

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Douglas Powell

A warning from the BC Centre for Disease Control about eating raw shellfish:

So far this summer, there have been an unprecedented number of shellfish-related illnesses thanks to the warm weather.

The majority of illnesses have been linked to eating raw oysters sourced in BC and served in restaurants.

Spokesperson Marsha Taylor says 35 people have become ill from eating the uncooked shellfish…

“We’re putting this message out both to the public that will also hit the restaurants and we’re also doing follow up with every restaurant to make sure they are aware of the issue and we’re inspecting the premises.”

Some illnesses have also been linked with raw oysters purchased or self-harvested.

Taylor says if you happen to get sick…

“People who are experiencing symptoms of the Vibrio Parahaemolyticus most often experience typical food-borne illness like nausea and vomiting, headaches, and feel pretty badly for a couple of days…but most people will recover on their own.”

To reduce risk of illness consumers are being told to eat only cooked shellfish.

Norovirus-like symptoms hit 300 students and staff at Canadian school

Posted on June 7, 2014 by Douglas Powell

The Fraser Health Authority says more than 300 students and staff at Delta Secondary School in Ladner, B.C. are experiencing what appear to be symptoms of norovirus.

Officials say the school is undergoing enhanced cleaning Thursday afternoon and are asking students and teachers who feel ill to stay home.

Norovirus — once known as Norwalk virus — is highly contagious and often spreads in places like schools, cruise ships and nursing homes, especially during the winter.

The stomach bug causes bouts of vomiting and diarrhea which can last for a few days. A new strain of the virus evolves every two or three years.

Norovirus can be spread by sharing food or cutlery with an infected person or by touching objects contaminated with the virus.

Craving credibility: raw milk risk and PR stunts

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Douglas Powell

The scientific fringe craves the credibility – the impateur — of the scientific mainstream. It fuels conspiracy theories, drains public health resources, and unnecessarily worries a lot of folks; it’s a recycled tactic often used in the politics of genetically engineered food, water fluoridation, and so on.

Mainstream science can be wrong; but it’s better than astrology.

In the interest of public discussion and equal opportunity opinion, public agencies will often invite alternate opinions on a topic. Which is apparently what the British Columbia (that’s a province in Canada) Center for Disease Control did when it invited a raw milk proponent to promote her cause.

The subsequent press release was predictable, breathlessly announcing in scientifically-sounding garble that “quantitative microbial risk assessments (QMRAs) recently published in the Journal of Food Protection have demonstrated that unpasteurized milk is a low-risk food.”

In craving credibility, the release states “British Columbia CDC’s Medical Director of Environmental Health Services, Dr. Tom Kosatsky, who is also Scientific Director of Canada’s National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health, welcomed the invited presentation as ‘up-to-date’ and ‘a very good example of knowledge synthesis and risk communication.’”

Risk communication shouldn’t be propaganda (although it often is).

Whether a food is low-risk or high-risk is a largely subjective comparison especially because it needs to be done on a per serving basis to be meaningful. A small percentage of people drink raw milk, yet it seems to cause a disproportionately high number of outbreaks, especially among kids.

Most of us don’t have a scotch and smoke with our four-year-olds, most of us don’t share raw milk with our four-year-olds. But I’ll leave it to others to comment on the uh, unique interpretations of risk assessment.

When the press release appeared I e-mailed BCCDC. They said the talk, presented May 16, 2013, was fairly presented, but had not changed the views of BCCDC, which maintains “pasteurization of raw milk has prevented thousands of illnesses and deaths. It is one of the greatest advances in public health of the 20th century” and that “raw milk isn’t safe.”

Vibrio risk in raw oysters extends to Canada

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Douglas Powell

Five cases of locally-acquired Vibrio parahaemolyticus infection have been reported in British Columbia this year. In 2011, 42 cases of Vibrio were reported. These illnesses have been linked to raw shellfish served in restaurants, bought at retail, or self-harvested in communities throughout the province including, Gibsons, Sechelt, Powell River, Ladysmith, Qualicum, Ucluelet, Gabriola Island, Cortes Island and Parksville.

The BC Centre for Disease Control says that in addition to individual cases, BC has also experienced outbreaks associated with shellfish. In 2010, an outbreak of norovirus from raw oysters affected over 30 people and in 2011 more than 60 people became ill after consuming cooked mussels contaminated with diarrhetic shellfish poisoning.

Satefy tips to reduce the risk of all shellfish-related illnesss:

Purchase shellfish only from approved sources. All bivalve shellfish sold in British Columbia must come from a federally approved source, and outlets and restaurants selling them must be able to provide a shellfish shipper’s tag, which ensures federal inspection.

Consume only cooked shellfish. Cooking will destroy viruses and bacteria and decrease the risk of gastrointestinal illness. When cooking shellfish at home, ensure shellfish are kept in a cold environment at all times, use drinking-quality water to rinse ready-to-eat shellfish, and ensure adequate cooking time. To ensure adequate cooking, test oysters with a meat thermometer and make sure the temperature reaches 90°C (195°F) for 90 seconds. This will kill the vibrio bacteria and minimize the risk of other infections.

Do not cross-contaminate when handling raw and cooked seafood. Prevent cross-contamination by storing raw and cooked seafood separately, cleaning and sanitizing knives and cutting boards and working with clean hands.

Social media role in tracking norovirus outbreak at journalism gathering

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Douglas Powell

This sounds like norovirus. And some investigators discovering that youngsters use different ways to communicate.

Michelle Ferguson tried to avoid it, but the rapid onslaught of nausea took its toll on her body when she suddenly vomited in the back seat of a school bus last weekend.

She and her fellow delegates, attending a journalism conference in downtown Victoria, were on their way to the Vertigo nightclub for the final gala when dozens of formally dressed students started vomiting on the buses, in their hotel and at the club.

Almost instantly, messages on Twitter told the stories of people suffering from extreme stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea. Staff at Canadian University Press, who organize the conference every year, contacted health officials as the numbers increased. Within minutes, delegates were asked to return to the Harbour Towers Hotel and Suites.

The well-documented outbreak is considered a successful example of the effectiveness of communicating through social media. The conference’s Twitter hashtag, #nash74, led news agencies to the story, became a slick crisis-control tool and has inspired health officials to consider using similar methods to monitor outbreaks.

"It would be fascinating to learn how to use social media to control and manage outbreaks like they did," said Dr. Murray Fyfe, chief medical health officer for the Vancouver Island Health Authority. "I’m sure some were able to limit their exposure because of it."

Messages about the widespread vomiting were sent out on #nash74. CUP staff saw the numbers climbing and shut down the gala.

CUP staff went door-to-door as well, but nothing worked more efficiently than Twitter, according to students.

"I feel a lot more people would have gotten sick without Twitter," Mattern said. "This whole thing would have played out a lot differently."

Methods for tracking and managing outbreaks could change because of the role Twitter played in this incident.

Fyfe and his staff have analyzed the Twitter feed from the conference and could follow how the outbreak spread.

"A traditional investigation would have trouble getting those details," he said. "We’re interested in partnering with people who have expertise in social media to use it as a tool to investigate outbreaks and as a communication tool to control outbreaks."

165 sick from norovirus at Canadian student journalism conference up from 75

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Douglas Powell

The Victoria Times Colonist (that’s in British Columbia, in Canada) reports 147 delegates are believed to have contracted norovirus during the final night of a four-day university journalism conference at the Harbour Towers Hotel and Suites, and the final tally has yet to come.

More than one- third of the 370 delegates attending the Canadian University Press national conference went down with severe nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

Eighteen hotel staff also contracted the virus about 24 hours after the first few students showed symptoms, according to hotel management.

"That’s a really significant outbreak," said Dr. Murray Fyfe, chief medical health officer for the Vancouver Island Health Authority. "And the fact that we had people who were perfectly well and then became ill after coming into contact with others or got sick when they got home, that’s really typical of norovirus."

The highly contagious virus kept some delegates isolated in their hotel rooms for days before they could check out.

Lesson in crisis communication: Painful norovirus infected 75 people at Victoria conference

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Douglas Powell

Barf happens, and the newly converted are quick to cite lessons learned, but the challenge remains – how to get people to pay attention before the outbreak happens?

The Vancouver Sun reports the final two dozen university conference delegates left Victoria on Tuesday after days of battling a painful norovirus outbreak that is believed to have infected about 75 people.

About 370 delegates arrived in the city for a national Canadian University Press conference on Jan. 11.

The journalism convention quickly made national headlines on Sunday morning after the virus rapidly spread throughout the Harbour Towers Hotel and Suites where they all stayed.

Those who were not infected — and some who were — made their way home Sunday, while the rest stayed an extra night or two waiting for their symptoms of vomiting, severe stomach pains and diarrhea to pass.

A shuttle bus took about 13 delegates to the Victoria Airport Tuesday morning with another five or six following them in the afternoon, according to university press staff.

Some students were reporting getting sick during their travels home and some even after they arrived. But with the worst behind them, delegates got back to classes and work.

“If anything, this entire conference, this entire situation, has been a lesson for us in terms of crisis communication,” said Emma Godmere, the CUP national bureau chief, who became a co-ordinator of all communication as information was sent out via Twitter.

I was just puked on and as a result puked myself, it’s awful; 60 sick as norovirus hits student journalism conference

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Douglas Powell

In what is now being dubbed the “Great Puking Debacle of Nash 74,” student journalists from across the country who attended Canadian University Press’s 74th National Conference (or “NASH”) in Victoria, B.C. were hit with a plague-like puking epidemic Saturday evening at the conference’s gala.

That’s how The Varsity, a University of Toronto student paper, described events after rumors of the vomiting outbreak surfaced on Twitter late Saturday evening, when conference delegates began reporting symptoms and nausea and vomiting episodes after dinner at the Harbour Towers Hotel and Suites in downtown Victoria.

There are reports on Twitter that up to 60 students are ill and 11 have been hospitalized with what is believed to be norovirus.

On Twitter, conference delegates live-tweeted new cases of the infection. As one attendee tweeted, “I was just puked on and as a result puked myself. It’s awful.”

The outbreak is the most recent example of live-tweeted epidemics, a phenomenon studied by scientists last year in response to swine flu trends on Twitter. Evidence of the Nash 74 outbreak’s progression can be found on Twitter under #nash74

E. coli kills BC senior; bacteria likely came from food served in a senior’s complex

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Douglas Powell

An E. coli outbreak at a Surrey, B.C. (that’s in Canada) seniors’ home last month sent three people to hospital, one of whom later died.

But a spokesman for the Fraser Health Authority said Thursday it’s not known whether the person died as a result of the outbreak, which is believed to have been linked to a shared meal.

Roy Thorpe-Dorward said twice a week the 257 residents at Kiwanis Park Place get together for a meal in the independent living facility. But after one such meal, believed to have been served between Nov. 8 and 14, three of the seniors became ill.

He said Fraser Health had found no problems with the home’s meal service during regular inspections.

"It’s thought to be linked to food preparation, either improper handling of food, inadequate cooking or improper cleaning of food surfaces," he said.

The two others who fell ill have recovered.

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