Robert Herriman of Outbreak News Today reports that at least 17 people, including several children have contracted the parasitic infection, trichinosis, after eating smoked brown bear cub in Kataiga village in the Tomsk region of Russia.
“The fact of poisoning is confirmed, 12 people were hospitalized, one victim was taken to Tomsk to SibGMU clinics.” All in all, there are 17 cases of trichinosis. “In total, 29 cases of poisoning were detected in the region,” said EDDU employee Verkhneketskiy district.
Robert Herriman of Outbreak News Today reports the number of people infected with the parasitic disease, trichinosis, has grown to 20 people in the Irkutsk region of Siberia, Russia, according to a Sib.fm report (computer translated).
The public health investigation reveals that the hunters contracted the parasite in May after preparing smoked bear meat which was consumed. Shortly after consuming the not fully cooked meat, they complained of feeling bad and went to the hospital.
Robert Herriman of Outbreak News Today reports that an outbreak of trichinosis, has been reported in Bahía Blanca, a city located in the south-west of the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, according to a La Verdad Online report (computer translated).
The local media reports that more than 100 people have been infected with 20 percent of those sickened being children. The consumption of dry sausages has named as the source of the infections.
The dry sausage is from a clandestine Grünbein farm where six pigs and 2 kilos of products were seized. In addition, it was confirmed that there are 3 persons in the Penna Hospital hospitalized for their illness.
In February, it was reported that in the city of Pehuajó more than 160 people with trichinosis were infected after consuming tainted dry sausages.
There are an estimated 170 people have been affected and 504 pigs sent to slaughter in the area involved.
The origin of the outbreak was due to the consumption of sausages unmarked from a butcher in that city, which was not authorized by local authorities, or hatcheries and farms of which got the pork that marketed the premises.
Before the fact, SENASA authorities acted in conjunction with the Ministry of Land Affairs of the Province and the Municipality of Pehuajó, from the initial seizure of the goods at the butcher until bans and controlled delivery job of confiscated animals. According to the results of diagnostic tests in the cold, many of these animals were positive.
Trichinosis or trichinellosis is a zoonotic disease that may be present in raw or undercooked meat from pigs and certain game animals such as wild boar and pumas. People get sick when they eat raw, sausages or sausage meat without proper sanitary control.
Pigs can get trichinosis when raised in unhygienic conditions with rodents and fed with trash or debris inadequate food. Parasitized pigs have no symptoms and characteristics of their meat is not altered.
Tracey Richardson of the Sun Times reports a Bruce County child has had the extremely rare distinction of acquiring trichinosis from pork — something that was thought to have been eradicated from the province for decades.
The last swine outbreak in Ontario happened in 1977. Until this January, the last human case of trichinosis case in Canada occurred in 1980 and was associated with the consumption of infected domestic pork.
Nowadays, trichinosis is usually confined to meat from wild animals. There was an outbreak in Ontario in 1993 among a couple of dozen people who’d eaten smoked wild boar meat.
Pig farmers and abattoirs must follow strict guidelines and inspections now to prevent outbreaks.
Approximately 18,000 slaughtered pigs are tested annually by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and every three to five years, about 16,000 sows are tested as part of a surveillance program. CFIA inspection staff at federally inspected meat plants enforce meat processing regulations for cooking, curing and freezing pork to ensure the destruction of trichinella larvae, and pig farmers are prohibited from feeding meat and meat byproducts to swine.
The Bruce County case happened in January this year at a Mennonite farm, said Grey Bruce medical officer of health Dr. Hazel Lynn. The farm was non-commercial and the pig was slaughtered and consumed on the farm. No part of the animal ever entered the commercial food supply.
News of the case was mentioned in passing at the public health board’s monthly meeting Friday.
Lynn said the child was diagnosed by an “astute” pediatrician in London, although the child recovered without treatment.
Lynn said when the farmer acquired the piglet, it was free of trichinella. “So it happened between being a tiny piglet and growing up to be slaughtered,” she said. “However their animal husbandry on the farm was pretty old style, so anything left over got fed to the pigs. Now if you cook it all, it’s OK. But also there were rats around, which many barns have, whether or not they’re well looked after, and that’s probably where this pig got it.”
Canada was settled by French and other European explorers by canoe – hence the Canadianism, as stated by Pierre Berton, a Canadian journalist and novelist,
"A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe without tipping it." The National Post reports this morning that for the second time in four years, health authorities in France have identified an outbreak of the parasitical illness trichinosis from bear meat devoured by French travelers in northern Canada.
The grizzly that ended up as steaks, stew and even "grizzly-bear Bolognese" had been threatening an Inuit camp on the Nunavut shore when it was shot by rangers, with the carcass later divided up among locals and visitors.
In 2005, 19 French travelers got sick after eating black bear in Labrador, while two others caught trichinosis from a polar bear in Greenland a few years earlier.
A Paris-based expert who investigated the outbreaks attributes the spate of bear-meat illness among his compatriots to the French culinary penchant for trying unconventional meats, and either eating them raw or cooking them very little.
One of the French adventurers — on a sailing trip across the Arctic — ended up hospitalized for 11 days after digesting the tainted food in September, though she avoided the most serious heart and brain complications of the infection.
Dr. Jean Dupouy-Camet, head of a trichinosis-tracking program, said in an interview from Paris,
"It’s quite fascinating to see that French people seem quite fond of bear meat. French people travelling abroad like to consume exotic meats … [And] they are usually fond of raw meat: steak tartare."
But the latest episode was not confined to the French sailors. Members of another North-West Passage sailing expedition, headed by a Canadian, ate some of the same meat and two of them also became ill.
Other people have had witty things to say about Canada. British novelist Douglas Adams said each country was like a particular type of person, and "Canada is like an intelligent 35 year old woman." America, on the other hand, is a "belligerent adolescent boy" and Australia is "Jack Nicholson." I may prefer Australia.
“The fact of poisoning is confirmed, 12 people were hospitalized, one victim was taken to Tomsk to SibGMU clinics.” All in all, there are 17 cases of trichinosis. “In total, 29 cases of poisoning were detected in the region,” said EDDU employee Verkhneketskiy district.
"A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe without tipping it."