Tag Archives: China

Water cooler common source in Norovirus outbreak in China

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Noroviruses are a common cause of acute gastroenteritis around the world; however, reports of outbreaks caused by GII.17 norovirus are rare. An outbreak caused by GII.17 norovirus in a senior high school in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China is reported here.

WatercoolerAn epidemiological investigation, pathogen detection, and case–control study were performed. Epidemiological data combined with the epidemic curve indicated that this outbreak was a point source type initially, followed by secondary transmission. The first case was identified as most likely the source of the outbreak.

Risk analysis showed exposure to patients and sharing a communal water cooler to be associated with the spread of infection. Sequence analysis of GII-positive samples confirmed that the norovirus GII.17 variant was the etiological agent of this outbreak.

An acute gastroenteritis outbreak caused by GII.17 norovirus in Jiangsu Province, China

Chao Shi1, Wei-Hong Feng1, Ping Shi1, Jing Ai, Hong-Xia Guan, Dan Sha, Qian Geng, Jun Mei, Shan-hui Chen, Yong Xiao, Yan-Hua Qian

1Chao Shi, Ping Shi, and Wei-Hong Feng contributed equally to this study.

International Journal of Infectious Diseases, August 2016, Volume 49, Pages 30-32, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2016.05.004

http://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(16)31047-5/fulltext

Salmonella from organic sprouts, grown in China, sickened people in Finland

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Two new cases of Salmonella enteritidis are being investigated in Finland after an earlier outbreak linked to imported organic mung bean sprouts.

Bean_sproutsAccording to the European Commission’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed, an outbreak of Salmonella enteritidis in Finland appears to be caused by organic mung beans sprouts from China, via the Netherlands

The sprouts have been withdrawn from the market.

More details can be found in the Food Quality News article.

Urine included: Virgin boy eggs a delicacy in China

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In spring, residents of Dongyang, in coastal Zhejiang Province, China, according to the N.Y. Times, chow down on eggs simmered in steaming pots of boys’ urine.

virgin.boy.eggsSold since ancient times as “virgin boy eggs,” the local delicacy was officially listed as “intangible cultural heritage” in Dongyang in 2008. Many residents believe they energize the body, improve blood circulation and prevent heat stroke. They are also a bargain at around 25 cents an egg, urine included.

Across Dongyang, a bustling city of nearly one million people, fresh urine is collected every day from buckets placed in elementary school hallways, where boys under the age of 10 are instructed to answer nature’s call — as long as they are not sick, out of concern for, um, food safety. Some vendors even carry around empty bottles and wait in parks or public bathrooms until they find a parent who is willing to let their prepubescent son participate in the custom.

Chinese medicine practitioners are divided on the supposed benefits of ingesting urine, which modern science has shown to have no nutritional value. But the locals in Dongyang are happy to shower praise on the eggs they call “the taste of spring.”

To prepare the eggs, chefs generally stick to a time-tested recipe: First, soak the eggs in pots of urine and bring to a boil. Remove the eggs, crack the shells, then return the eggs to the pot and simmer for about a day, adding more urine as necessary, sometimes with herbs. The marinade gives the egg whites a pale golden hue, while the yolks turn green. They are also quite salty, according to Wu Bei, 39, an employee at the Zhang Yuming Chinese Medicine Clinic in Dongyang.

“They taste a bit like urine, but not too much,” she said. “It’s delicious, you should try one sometime!”

22 sentenced for selling 5,000 kg poisoned dog meat in China

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The Indian Express reports that 22 people were sentenced to up to eight years in prison for making and selling more than 5,000 kilograms of tainted dog sadie.dog.powellmeat in China’s Jiangsu Province.

Prosecutors in Rugao city have investigated 14 cases regarding tainted food, which involved over 5,000 kilograms of poisoned dog meat, 11,000 poisoned birds and 500 kilograms of hazardous chemicals.

Police detained Lao Gan (pseudonym) who purchased 7,000 kilogrammes of poisoned dog meat before tracking down another five people.

They also bought half of the meat and sold it to restaurants in the outskirts of cities in Anhui, Shandong and Jiangsu provinces, state-run Global Times reported.

Local police also caught eight men for killing and selling over 11,000 ‘poisoned birds’, most of which were sold to restaurants in Shanghai, Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces.

The sentences came as China faced criticism both at home and abroad for not banning the annual dog meat festival in Yulin last week where 10,000 dogs were reported to have been slaughtered.

China’s Yulin dog meat festival begins for 2016 despite protests

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China’s southern city of Yulin began its annual dog meat festival on Tuesday despite opposition from millions of animal rights activists.

Residents of the city have complained of new government measures to keep the festival, during which thousands of dogs are expected to be killed and eaten, low key.

Animal rights activists this month handed Beijing authorities a petition with 11 million signatures protesting against the festival, which they say is cruel.

An online petition on Change.org has attracted a further 2.5 million signatures, with a crowdfunding effort raising more than $110,000 to buy the dogs for sale and provide them medical care and new homes.

Yang Yuhua, an animal rights activist, flew to Yulin from the southwestern city of Chongqing to buy dogs sold at the festival.

“Dogs are man’s best, the most loyal friend. How could we eat our friends?” the activist asked.

Yang spent 1,000 yuan ($150) to buy two caged dogs at the market from the vendor.

Several others also dug deep, with the small number of dogs on sale at the city’s central market all bought by activists rather than locals.

Vendors said they hoped for good business this year, with “a lot of people” enjoying eating dog meat.

“It’s your habit, it’s my habit,” said a vendor surnamed Zhou.

Co-occurrence, co-localization, co-selection: Antimicrobial resistance in agriculture

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Antibiotic resistance is a worldwide health risk, but the influence of animal agriculture on the genetic context and enrichment of individual antibiotic resistance alleles remains unclear.

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Using quantitative PCR followed by amplicon sequencing, we quantified and sequenced 44 genes related to antibiotic resistance, mobile genetic elements, and bacterial phylogeny in microbiomes from U.S. laboratory swine and from swine farms from three Chinese regions.

We identified highly abundant resistance clusters: groups of resistance and mobile genetic element alleles that cooccur. For example, the abundance of genes conferring resistance to six classes of antibiotics together with class 1 integrase and the abundance of IS6100-type transposons in three Chinese regions are directly correlated. These resistance cluster genes likely colocalize in microbial genomes in the farms. Resistance cluster alleles were dramatically enriched (up to 1 to 10% as abundant as 16S rRNA) and indicate that multidrug-resistant bacteria are likely the norm rather than an exception in these communities. This enrichment largely occurred independently of phylogenetic composition; thus, resistance clusters are likely present in many bacterial taxa.

Furthermore, resistance clusters contain resistance genes that confer resistance to antibiotics independently of their particular use on the farms. Selection for these clusters is likely due to the use of only a subset of the broad range of chemicals to which the clusters confer resistance. The scale of animal agriculture and its wastes, the enrichment and horizontal gene transfer potential of the clusters, and the vicinity of large human populations suggest that managing this resistance reservoir is important for minimizing human risk.

Agricultural antibiotic use results in clusters of cooccurring resistance genes that together confer resistance to multiple antibiotics. The use of a single antibiotic could select for an entire suite of resistance genes if they are genetically linked. No links to bacterial membership were observed for these clusters of resistance genes. These findings urge deeper understanding of colocalization of resistance genes and mobile genetic elements in resistance islands and their distribution throughout antibiotic-exposed microbiomes. As governments seek to combat the rise in antibiotic resistance, a balance is sought between ensuring proper animal health and welfare and preserving medically important antibiotics for therapeutic use. Metagenomic and genomic monitoring will be critical to determine if resistance genes can be reduced in animal microbiomes, or if these gene clusters will continue to be coselected by antibiotics not deemed medically important for human health but used for growth promotion or by medically important antibiotics used therapeutically.

Clusters of antibiotic resistance genes enrich together stay together in swine agriculture

Timothy A. Johnsona,b,f, Robert D. Stedtfelda,c, Qiong Wanga, James R. Colea, Syed A. Hashshama,c, Torey Looftf, Yong-Guan Zhud,e, James M. Tiedjea,b

 

mBio, Volume 7, Number 2, doi: 10.1128/mBio.02214-15

http://mbio.asm.org/content/7/2/e02214-15.abstract?etoc

A review on antimicrobial resistance in agriculture is also available.

In this article, the current knowledge and knowledge gaps in the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in livestock and plants and importance in terms of animal and human health are discussed. Some recommendations are provided for generation of the data required in order to develop risk assessments for AMR within agriculture and for risks through the food chain to animals and humans.

Sophie Thannera, David Drissnerb,  Fiona Walshc

 

mBio, Volume 7, Number 2, doi: 10.1128/mBio.02227-1

http://mbio.asm.org/content/7/2/e02227-15.abstract?etoc

Gutter oil: an overview of Chinese food safety issues and policies

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Food safety has become a focus of attention worldwide. In China, one of the top concerns in food safety is gutter oil, known as ‘swill-cooked oil.’

gutter.oil.wayne's.worldThis Commentary summarizes the key incidents disclosed to the public by the media, and the policies regarding gutter oil at national, regional, and provincial or city levels.

Several challenges the country still faces in tackling this issue are identified, including a lack of evaluation of the implementation and effect of the policies, a lack of effective technology to detect and recycle gutter oil, and the overlooking of the hazardous effect of gutter oil on health.

This commentary suggests that strengthening policy implementation and evaluation, improving measurement and recycling technologies, and launching public health campaigns would help eliminate gutter oil from dining tables.

Gutter oil: an overview of Chinese food safety issues and policies

Global Health Promotion

Jia Li1,2, Naizue Cui2, Jianghong Liu2

1School of Medicine, Jinhua Polytechnic College, Jinhua, Zhejiang,

  • China
  • 2School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

http://ped.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/03/31/1757975915623733

‘No risk’ statements are risky: Six arrested in China over fake infant formula

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Chinese authorities have arrested six people for making and selling fake infant formula as the popular US brand “Similac”, marketing the counterfeit product across seven provinces, a Shanghai government body said.

similac_1459841044Abbott, maker of Similac, said separately on Tuesday that the case came to light in December and the fake goods had been traced and seized by the end of last year, according to a statement on its verified Chinese microblog.

The Shanghai Municipal Food and Drug Administration said it was also tracking Internet sales of the fake milk powder, according to its statement released Monday.

State media reports have previously said the gang sold more than 17,000 cans, earning nearly 2.0 million yuan ($309,000).

National authorities said the fake powder posed no safety risk. In a separate case, a Chinese court last month sentenced 10 people to jail for as long as 15 years for selling fake beef jerky, state media reported.

100s sickened: Noro in water source of outbreak at Chinese school

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In late 2014, a gastroenteritis outbreak occurred in a school in Shandong Province, eastern China. Hundreds of individuals developed the symptoms of diarrhea and vomiting.

norovirus-2Epidemiological investigation showed that food consumption was not linked to this outbreak, and unboiled direct drinking water was identified as the independent risk factor with a relative risk of 1·37 (95% confidence interval 1·03–1·83). Furthermore, examination of common bacterial and viral gastroenteritis pathogens was conducted on different specimens. Norovirus GI.1, GI.2, GI.6, GII.4, GII.6 and GII.13 were detected in clinical specimens and a water sample. GII.4 sequences between clinical specimens and the water sample displayed a close relationship and belonged to GII.4 variant Sydney 2012.

 These results indicate that direct drinking water contaminated by norovirus was responsible for this gastroenteritis outbreak. This study enriches our knowledge of waterborne norovirus outbreaks in China, and presents valuable prevention and control practices for policy-makers. In future, strengthened surveillance and supervision of direct drinking-water systems is needed.

A waterborne norovirus gastroenteritis outbreak in a school, eastern China

Epidemiology and Infection, 144, pp 1212-1219

Zhou, H. Zhang, X. Lin, P. Hou, S. Wang, Z. Tao, Z. Bi and A. Xu

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=10250463&utm_source=Issue_Alert&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=HYG

Ele.me scandal puts China’s online food delivery industry under scrutiny

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China’s growing food delivery market has hit a snag after the country’s state broadcaster aired a scathing report against the industry’s biggest player.

Eleme-finEle.me, the Shanghai-based online food delivery service backed by Alibaba, Tencent and JD.com, was singled out in CCTV’s annual “3.15” investigative TV program on Tuesday for allowing unqualified workers to deliver potentially unsanitary food to its customers.

“You think you ordered food as pretty as in the pictures, but they were in reality made in unlicensed and filthy shacks that will cause you to vomit,” the program said.

The exposé was soon followed by an announcement from the food and drug regulators in Shanghai and Chengdu on Wednesday to conduct investigations on Ele.me.

Ele.me, which delivers to more than 300 cities across China, quickly issued an apology to the public and vowed to take the necessary measures to avoid such incidents in the future.

ele.me.food“It is with a heavy heart that I find that the company we are so proud of has triggered such food safety concerns,” Ele.me CEO Zhang Xuhao said in a statement on Wednesday.

Zhang said the company will implement tougher food safety checks, remove the offending restaurants from its platform, and launch an internal investigation to rectify the situation.