Fødevarestyrelsen, the Danish food administration, has withdrawn Montagnon Morbier cheese from circulation following the detection of salmonella, Metroexpress reports.
“If you eat this cheese, you risk being infected with salmonella,” warns Fødevarestyrelsen in the newspaper.
Forbrugerrådet, the Danish Consumer Council, advises people who have purchased Montagnon Morbier to return it to the store where they bought it.
Danish supermarket chain Dansk Supermarked has suspended all trade with domestic supplier Skare Meat Packers (SMP) following the discovery that salmonella-infected ground beef was delivered by SMP to the retailer’s Netto discount grocery stores in June.
Last month, it was revealed that up to 130 people, including a three-year-old boy, may have gotten ill from salmonella in ground beef in an outbreak that was kept hidden from the public until now.
Metroxpress obtained access to documents that reveal that ground beef infected with multi resistant salmonella was sold by the Vejen-based food company Skare in June.
According to earlier reports, Skare delivered the beef to stores on June 13th but did not recall it as required by law when an analysis the following day found the presence of salmonella.
According to the Danish State Serum Institute (SSI), 19 people, including the three-year-old, reported being ill just days later. Beyond the 19 registered cases, SSI estimates that up to 130 people may have been sickened by the tainted meat.
“Six of the 19 were so sick that they were hospitalised,” SSI’s Kåre Mølbak told Metroxpress.
The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration (Fødevarestrylsen) first traced the infection to Skare a full 40 days after the meat was sent to stores, but the food authorities did not require a recall.
Neither Skare or Fødevarestrylsen will tell consumers where the meat was sold.
“This is confidential information, the release of which would cause considerable economic harm to the company,” Fødevarestrylsen wrote, according to Metroxpress.
Food safety expert Orla Zinck called the authorities’ decision “a scandal of unimaginable proportions.”
“Fødevarestrylsen’s acts are a danger to consumers’ health when it, out of consideration for Skare’s revenues, fails to recall dangerous meat and on top of that hides where it was sold,” Zinck told Metroxpress.
Fødevarestrylsen has also faced criticism for its slow reaction to a listeria outbreak that has caused 16 deaths.
Up to 130 people, including a three-year-old boy, may have gotten ill from salmonella in ground beef in an outbreak that was kept hidden from the public until now.
Metroxpress obtained access to documents that reveal that ground beef infected with multi resistant salmonella was sold by the Vejen-based food company Skare in June.
Skare delivered the beef to stores on June 13th but did not recall it as required by law when an analysis the following day found the presence of salmonella.
According to the Danish State Serum Institute (SSI), 19 people, including the three-year-old, reported being ill just days later. Beyond the 19 registered cases, SSI estimates that up to 130 people may have been sickened by the tainted meat.
“Six of the 19 were so sick that they were hospitalised,” SSI’s Kåre Mølbak told Metroxpress.
The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration (Fødevarestrylsen) first traced the infection to Skare a full 40 days after the meat was sent to stores, but the food authorities did not require a recall.
Neither Skare or Fødevarestrylsen will tell consumers where the meat was sold.
“This is confidential information, the release of which would cause considerable economic harm to the company,” Fødevarestrylsen wrote, according to Metroxpress.
Food safety expert Orla Zinck called the authorities’ decision “a scandal of unimaginable proportions.”
“Fødevarestrylsen’s acts are a danger to consumers’ health when it, out of consideration for Skare’s revenues, fails to recall dangerous meat and on top of that hides where it was sold,” Zinck told Metroxpress.
Fødevarestrylsen has also faced criticism for its slow reaction to a listeria outbreak that has caused 16 deaths.
Three people have died from listeria-infested asparagus soup at Odense University Hospital.
The deaths are a result of a new listeria outbreak and are not related to the one that has been traced to the deli meat rullepølse, which has claimed 16 lives.
“There are two different outbreaks and they are not connected. In the asparagus soup, it is a completely different strain of listeria than in the rullepølse outbreak.”
Three of the infections proved fatal, with the most recent death in April.
A recent check by the Danish Food and Veterinary Service (Fødevarestyrelsen) found traces of listeria in three soups at Odense University Hospital and Svendborg Hospital. Listeria was also found in meatballs served with the soups.
In all, 38 people were infected through the rullepølse outbreak, with 16 dying within 30 days of being infected. The last recorded death was on August 25.
With 15 dead and 38 sick from a Listeria outbreak in Denmark, there’s probably more testing going on.
And they’re finding Listeria.
The northern Jutland company Geia Food has recalled a batch of røget ørred (smoked trout) after Listeria was found in some samples, according to a release from the food authority, Fødevarestyrelsen.
The fish is sold at Rema 1000 stores under the Musholm brand with expiration dates 25 September 2014 and 29 September 2014.
Fødevarestyrelsen has advised customers to throw away the fish or return it to the shop where it was purchased.
Halibut, called hellefish in Danish, from Hjerting Laks should also be binned or returned to the Irma supermarket where it was purchased.
According to both Fødevarestyrelsen and Metroxpress, frozen fish from as far back as 1 June may be infected. Hjerting Laks has previously had problems with listeria infection.
However, Statens Serum Institute (SSI) said that it has not yet heard of anyone contracting listeria from infected fish.
The number of those affected has also risen to 38, SSI said.
The outbreak has been traced to the deli meat rullepølse produced by the company Jørn A. Rullepølser, which has been shut down.
A total of 30 products – including variations of rullepølse, salami and hot dogs – were recalled.
The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration (Fødevarestrylsen) also warned on Monday of a listeria risk in halibut sold by the company Hjerting Laks that was sold in Netto, Irma and Føtex stores.
Fødevarestrylsen was criticised for not acting quickly enough in responding to the listeria outbreak, with the food and agriculture minister, Dan Jørgensen, saying that “serious mistakes” took place.
Along with the death toll, the number of those infected nationwide continues to rise. Statens Serum Institut (SSI) reports that three more people have been infected, taking the total to 37 people – 17 men and 20 women.
Over 40 companies have been too slow to remove possibly infected products from the shelves and have been fined up to 40,000 kroner.
Some of the companies involved have delivered meals to the elderly or to other companies, and the food authority, Fødevarestyrelsen, said that they were too slow withdrawing products.
SSI said that rullepølser is not the only source of the bacteria. Salami and grilled sausages were also infected.
Birgitte Kallipolitis, an associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Southern Denmark, and colleagues report their findings in the journal Nucleic Acids Research.
Listeria, a bacterium that sometimes occurs in unprocessed and processed foods, causes an infection called listeriosis. Most infections only result in mild symptoms such as fever, vomiting and diarrhea, which take about 3 days to pass and do not normally require treatment.
But in rare cases, listeriosis can spread to other parts of the body and cause severe conditions like meningitis, which is typically accompanied by severe headache, stiff neck and tremors.
Unborn babies can also contract a listeria infection from the mother via the placenta.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that around 1,600 Americans fall ill with listeriosis and 260 die from it every year. In Denmark – a country with a population some 60 times smaller than that of the US – over the last few weeks alone, 28 people have fallen ill and 13 have died from listeriosis caused by eating processed foods bought in supermarkets. Prof. Kallipolitis says Listeria is notoriously difficult to fight because it is extremely able to adapt to changes in its surroundings. This was the subject of their study, which reveals some important clues about how Listeria manages to retain the ability to invade cells while at the same time escape the attention of the immune system.
For their study, they examined what happens at the microbiological level when Listeria is exposed to some of the substances known to be challenging to bacteria – such as antibiotics, bile, salt, ethanol and acid, many of which it encounters in processed and unprocessed foods in the human body and also in disinfected environments.
Prof. Kallipolitis says, “We knew that Listeria can resist these substances, but we did not quite know how.” She and her colleagues found the bacterium uses various strategies to resist the substances.
“Generally speaking, Listeria must be described as extremely adaptable. It is constantly aware of its surroundings and if the environment changes around it. It reacts instantly and has a number of strategies to withstand threats,” she explains.
Listeria infects host cells by producing special proteins. In order for infection to be successful, the bacterium must keep the production of the proteins under a certain level – for above this level the host immune system becomes aware of it and attacks the pathogen.
The researchers discovered that when they exposed Listeria in the lab to the various anti-pathogen substances like bile, salt, ethanol and antibiotics, the bacterium started releasing special RNA molecules, as Prof. Kallipolitis explains:
“With these RNA molecules the bacteria can adjust how much or how little to produce of various proteins. For example it can downgrade the production of the protein LapB, which it uses to enter our cells. If this production is not downgraded, the bacterium will potentially be detected and fought by the immune system.”
The team also found that these same RNA molecules help Listeria keep watch on its cell walls in the face of danger. Antibiotics work by attacking the cell walls of bacteria. But when Listeria is exposed to antibiotics, it rapidly detects the assault on its cell walls and sets about repairing them.
The researchers observed that in the lab, Listeria only produces the special RNA molecules when exposed to one of the challenging substances. The bacterium did not produce them when there was no challenge.
Prof. Kallipolitis says this “reveals part of the mechanism behind Listeria’s extreme adaptability.”
The team now plans to find out if removing the RNA molecules renders Listeria harmless.
At a time when a listeria outbreak continues to claim new victims – 13 people have died and a 29th person was confirmed as infected on Thursday – salmonella fears caused an egg recall and a steep increase in MRSA has been recorded, the government’s budget proposal released this week calls for cut in food control funding.
The government’s budget includes a 139.9 million kroner ($24.8 million) reduction in food safety controls and research. The cuts from a total food security budget of roughly 1.4 billion kroner and would be spread across the next four years.
The cut was revealed on the same day that a new salmonella scare led to the recall of chilli-flavoured pork chops and just days after the food company Lepo recalled a batch of the popular liver pate spreadleverpostej after the discovery of listeria.
According to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), measured by capita Denmark has some of the worst food security in the EU. The EFSA ranks Denmark as third worst country when it comes to the number of people infected with listeria, the eighth worst for campylobacter infections and the 11th worst when it comes to salmonella.
Tulip Food Company, which sells its meat products in both Denmark and Sweden, announced a recall of its Danish deli meat products on Friday after finding traces of listeria in portions of meat sold in Sweden.
The company specified that the discovered amounts were miniscule, but that it was exercising caution.
“Listeria can grow in a product and even a very small amount can turn into a risky amount before the meat expires,” Michael Larsen, quality manager at Tulip Food Company, said in a statement.
The recalled products are Shächter Luftikus, Shächter Bauernskinka, Tulip Kokt Skinka, and Tulip Rökt Skinka, all in 500 gramme packages produced between August 7th and August 20th.
Contaminated meat has killed 13 people and caused at least 24 infections in Denmark, The Local Denmark reported.