Australian listeria source identified

The listeria outbreak that hit five Virgin Blue airline passengers in Australia has been traced to a poultry supplier in New South Wales (NSW)

GMI Food Wholesalers Pty Ltd, trading as Australian Poultry and Food Wholesalers, was named last week in connection with a spate of illnesses earlier this year from the potentially deadly bug. Media reports in the country said two pregnant women affected with listeria poisoning subsequently gave birth prematurely.

Prohibition order
The NSW government has slapped a prohibition order on the company’s plant in Wollongong banning it from manufacturing chicken products or any other ready-to-eat (RTE) meat. The order came into force on August 4 and will stay in place until further notice. The government said it delayed making an announcement for more than two weeks pending laboratory confirmation that the facility was the source of the listeria contamination.

Suspicion

A Virgin Blue statement released in early August immediately raised suspicion that the source of the problem was a contaminated ingredient.

Dr Erin Groves, acting deputy director of the Queensland Health confirmed that the focus of the investigation would fall on meat processors whose processing and supply procedures would come under intense scrutiny.

"What we're needing to do is go out to all manufacturers that could possibly be implicated and do very extensive testing of how they process their meat, how they supply it to people who then on give it to people to consume - to actually find out whether there's things we can do to prevent further infection," Groves said.

Fuente: http://www.foodqualitynews.com/

Aporte: Claudia Villarroel