Tag Archives: Botulism

Bump in foodborne botulism in Colorado

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The pandemic brought a rise in home canning and food preservation as evidenced by a scarcity of canning supplies on store shelves and from online retailers, perhaps driven by a bountiful harvest by those who planted home gardens in the spring during the early lockdown period.

The Journal Advocate reports improperly canned food is behind at least some of the several cases of confirmed and suspected foodborne botulism that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) has investigated in the state since September, according to a release from CDPHE Wednesday. Testing from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed four of the cases, one is still under investigation, and two test results are pending. All of the confirmed cases occurred along the Front Range, and one of the unconfirmed cases occurred in the Western Slope.

A majority of the cases appear to be unrelated as no common food item was identified. The last two confirmed cases were the result of an improperly canned shared food made in the same household, prompting a warning from CDPHE about home food safety.

 “Botulism does not spread from person to person, so there is no risk to the public. However, these cases are a good reminder of how important it is to properly preserve and handle food in the home,” said Nicole Comstock, deputy branch chief, communicable disease branch.

Hundreds of gallons of homemade booze found before inmate Super Bowl party, CA jail says

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Officers at a San Francisco Bay Area jail confiscated an enormous stash of homebrew alcohol concocted by prisoners for a Super Bowl blowout party, sheriff’s officials told Don Sweeney of The Sacramento Bee.

“There will be no super bowl party at Santa Rita Jail tomorrow,” the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department wrote on an Instagram post Saturday showing officers posing with trash bags of green-, yellow-, blue- and orange-colored alcohol.

The concoction, called pruno, is commonly produced in prisons and jails by fermenting “fruit, sugar, water, and other common ingredients for several days in a sealed plastic bag,” reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But it’s also a recipe for botulism, particularly since the process isn’t exactly sanitary, the CDC warns.

Improperly home-canned peas linked to botulism illnesses

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A couple of years ago I ran into a barfblog reader who commented to me, ‘You’re really scared of botulism, aren’t you?’ This wasn’t a random question, it was related to a few things I had posted over a couple of year period. I think he thought I was irrationally worried about it.

Scared isn’t how I would describe it. Rattled and in awe of are probably better terms. The toxin blocks motor nerve terminals at the myoneural junction, causing paralysis. It starts with the mouth, eyes, face and moves down through the body. It often results in paralysis of the chest muscles and diaphragm, making a ventilator necessary. Months of recovery follow an intoxication.

Maybe I am scared.

There isn’t a whole lot of botulism in the U.S. every year, and not all of it is foodborne – (infant botulism is more common); over the past two decades, improperly home preserved foods have been identified as a common vehicle.

Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (my favorite Thursday read, see my coveted mug at right) nails it again with a detailed report of three botulism cases in 2018 – all linked to an improperly canned jar of peas.

Here are some highlights from lead author Bergeron and colleagues:

On June 6, 2018, at 1:30 p.m., the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene was notified of three related women who had arrived at a hospital 4 hours earlier for evaluation for acute nausea, dizziness, blurred vision, slurred speech, ptosis, thick-feeling tongue, and shortness of breath. Two patients developed respiratory failure, requiring intubation and mechanical ventilation in the emergency department, and the third patient was intubated at 7 p.m. that evening.

Approximately 14 hours before arriving at the hospital, the patients had shared a homemade potato salad containing home-canned peas. The family’s freezer had malfunctioned, and, to preserve some commercially produced frozen peas, one of the patients had home-canned the peas 1–2 weeks before consumption.

The patient who prepared the home-canned peas was a novice home canner. She used a peach preserves recipe with a boiling water technique, replacing the peaches with frozen vegetables. The patient was unaware that low-acid foods (e.g., vegetables) must be canned in a pressure canner rather than a boiling water canner to eliminate C. botulinum spores (1). After the jars cooled, the patient correctly checked for jar seal. One of the jars of peas was not sealed, so the patient covered and refrigerated it, and the family consumed the peas in the potato salad.

 

Home canned vegetables linked to botulism

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A couple of years ago I ran into a barfblog reader who commented to me, ‘You’re really scared of botulism, aren’t you?’ This wasn’t a random question, it was related to a few things I had posted following over 20 illnesses linked to a potluck dinner at Cross Pointe Free Will Baptist Church in Lancaster, Ohio.

Scared isn’t how I would describe it. Rattled and in awe of are probably better terms. The toxin blocks motor nerve terminals at the myoneural junction, causing paralysis. It starts with the mouth, eyes, face and moves down through the body. It often results in paralysis of the chest muscles and diaphragm, making a ventilator necessary. Months of recovery follow an intoxication.

Maybe I am scared.

There isn’t a whole lot of botulism in the U.S. every year, and not all of it is foodborne – (infant botulism is more common); over the past two decades, improperly home preserved foods are the main source.

According to Punch, fourteen people, including four children, were hospitalised after a mass botulism food poisoning outbreak in southern Kyrgyzstan.

An epidemiological investigation has been conducted and all patients have received the anti-botulinum serum.

The first case of food poisoning in the city of Uzgen in the Osh region was reported on March 11.

According to preliminary data, the poisoning occurred due to eating homemade canned vegetable salad.

A month earlier, 17 people in southern Kyrgyzstan were hospitalised for the same reason.

Botulism in France, 2013-2016

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Human botulism is a rare but severe neurological disease which is submitted to the French Public Health. The biological diagnosis is performed by the National Reference Center of Anaerobic Bacteria and Botulism (CNR), Institut Pasteur, Paris.

This study carries the status of human botulism in France During the 2013-2016 period based on the epidemiological data of Public Health France and the biological investigation of CNR. episodes

Thirty-nine of confirmed botulism and 3 suspected episodes involving 68 and 4 persons, respectively were Identified: 6 Type A episodes (10 cases), 26 type B episodes (47 boxes), type 2 F episodes (5 cases), and 5 undetermined type episodes (6 boxes). The source of botulism was foodborne in 36 outbreaks (66 cases) and 6 cases were infant botulism. All type A and F botulism cases were severe forms

The incriminated food was identified in 15 of the 36 episodes of foodborne botulism. Homemade preparations of pork meat, especially raw ham, were responsible for 13 type B episodes, including 3 due to imported meat. Homemade pork meat was suspected in 12 other outbreaks. Other included pheasant pie and home canned asparagus. One of the two type F episodes was caused by industrial ground meat contaminated with Clostridium baratii F7 . No food has been identified in infant botulism and environmental contamination has been suspected in three cases. Penicillin and metronidazole resistant C. botulinum A2 strain was isolated from an infant botulism case with relapses.

Human botulism is rare in France. However, botulism surveillance is required for early identification of emerging novel botulinum toxin types, such as in the two C. baratii type F outbreaks in 2014 and 2015. Botulism surveillance also helps addressing recommendations to industrialists and consumers regarding hygiene and food preservation practices. Finally, this surveillance allows to quickly identify contaminated food in order to withdraw it from the market or from family’s homes.

Human botulism in France, 2013-2016

BEH

Christelle Mazuet 1 , Nathalie Jourdan-Da Silva 2 , Christine Legeay 1 , Jean Sautereau 1 , Michel R. Popoff 1

http://invs.santepubliquefrance.fr/beh/2018/3/2018_3_1.html

Fish-linked botulism in Nigeria

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I’ve chronicled my fear of botulism many times before. I still can stuff, but I really pay attention to what I’m doing.

Dried fish and botulism seem to go together. Five bot cases in Germany and Spain were linked to dried fish in 2016.

There were 90 illnesses and nine deaths in 2017 from foodborne botulism in Ukraine. That’s a lot. Fish were a factor in many of these illnesses.

According to Outbreak News Daily, two unlucky Nigerians have died from botulism after consuming fish.

Three family members contracted suspected foodborne botulism, resulting in the deaths of the father and mother, according to the  the Nigerian Centres for Disease Control (NCDC). Fish appears to be the common food source.

The event descriptions of the two fatalities is provided by the World Health Organization (WHO):

The woman, a 47 year-old, presented to King’s Care Hospital, Abuja, on 7 January 2018, with vomiting, fever, sudden blurring of vision, generalized body weakness, dysphagia and odynophagia, and left ptosis. She was semi-conscious. She was initially diagnosed with ischaemic heart disease, with esophageal stricture and central retinal vein thrombosis. However, her neurological symptoms worsened rapidly, progressing to complete bilateral ptosis, paralysis of her respiratory muscles, and respiratory failure. She was referred approximately 24 hours after admission and died in transit.

Her 49 year-old husband presented to the same hospital with nausea, dizziness, vomiting, progressive dysarthria, odynophagia and partial ptosis. He was transferred to Zenith Medical and Kidney Centre, where his symptoms worsened. He suffered progressive respiratory failure, which required a tracheostomy and ventilation, and died on 15 January 2018.

Their 15-year-old daughter also developed symptoms and was hospitalized as of last week.

All three cases had eaten fish at home in the previous 24 hours. Two further children, who stayed in the same house, are currently in Lagos and are being monitored remotely. A third child is in Karu, but monitoring has been hampered by uncooperative relatives.

 

4 in family sick from suspected botulism in Sweden

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From Pro-Med:

A total of 4 people in a family in Gothenburg suffered from botulism. For this reason,
Eldsberga chark recalls its product “Suha Bosan Point”, Smoked beef
from Bosnia in Sweden.

The meat, totalling more than 40 kg [approx. 88 lb] – with Holland as
its country of origin, – has been sold in bulk at, among other places,
the Orient House between that [7 and 20 Nov 2017]. The meat has also
been found in sandwiches sold by a baguette cafe.

Sime Trosic is the CEO of Eldsberga chark. “It’s hell that someone may
have suffered badly because of our products. I have children myself
and can hardly describe how it would feel if they floated between life
and death, ” he said.

The revocation is made “for cautionary reasons” and according to the
National Food Administration, it has not yet been established that
botulism that the 4 family members suffered from was from the beef.

The Authority continues to investigate the source of infection
together with Goteborg’s Environmental Management and Eldsberga
Chark.

“According to the Swedish Food and Drug Administration, we can work as
usual, they found no mistakes in our routines”, says Sime Trosic. He
urges customers who bought “Suha Bosan Point” during the current
period of time to return it at the place of purchase.

The 4 affected family members have been discharged from the hospital
and are improving. “I’m glad they’re on the improvement path, that’s
most important”, says Sime Trosic.

No further cases of botulism have been found.

Fonterra fined $183m over contamination scandal

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New Zealand’s Fonterra has been ordered to pay 105 million euros (NZ$183 million) in damages to French food giant Danone as a result of the Fonterra food safety failures of 2013.

Danone had sued Fonterra as a result of the whey protein concentrate contamination scandal in 2013, when Fonterra quarantined several batches over fears it was contaminated with clostridium bacteria. It later turned out to be a false alarm.

Danone launched a legal suit in New Zealand and arbitration proceedings in Singapore, seeking restoration for the costs of recalling the whey protein concentrate.

At the time, Fonterra said it expected any court action would show the Kiwi firm didn’t have any liability in the contract, and it recognised a contingent liability of just $14m over the recall.

In 2014, New Zealand’s Court of Appeal upheld an earlier decision that the Singapore arbitration proceedings should be the first avenue, as provided for in the contract, but refused to permanently stay the legal suit.

The result of the Singapore proceedings was released on Friday, and Danone says it “welcomes” the decision.

3 members of NZ family stricken with botulism from wild boar: 1 has begun to ‘mouth words’

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The oldest member of a South Waikato family struck down by suspected botulism poisoning has begun to mouth words, a spokesman says.

Shibu Kochummen, 35, his wife Subi Babu, 33, and his mother Alekutty Daniel, 62, ate a wild boar curry for dinner two weeks ago at their Putaruru home.

Within minutes of eating, Babu and Daniel collapsed, vomiting. Kochummen called an ambulance but collapsed while on the phone.

The trio have been in a serious but stable condition in Waikato Hospital for the past two weeks and at the weekend Daniel became “slightly responsive”, having co-ordinated eye movement and the ability to focus.

“No one has spoken but we are beginning to get focus on movement,” family spokesman Joji Varghese earlier told Belinda Feek of the New Zealand Herald.

He confirmed today that Daniel was now beginning to mouth words but she wasn’t yet talking.

Subi Babu was also making progress but not as much as her mother-in-law.

Shibu Kochummen has yet to respond.

Varghese said doctors did not know if Daniel’s ability to follow an object with her eyes meant she was comprehending yet and they were still awaiting results of tests being conducted in Brisbane to definitively diagnose botulism.

But, but mom, I don’t like beets

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I called my mother the other day and she cut me short because she was jarring beets.

“You know your father likes his pickled beets.”

OK.

It was one of our go-to phrases growing up, and I have no idea why.

Probably because beets were a staple of 1970s funky glassware along with pickles and pickled onions.

But to do beets right, you may need advice from North Carolina canning queen, Ben Chapman, who produced this infosheet five years ago.