Salmonella in cantaloupe causing deaths

Two deaths, 204 sickened, 79 hospitalized form Salmonella in cantaloupes.

A total of 204 individuals infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella typhimurium have been reported from 22 states from cantaloupe, according to the CDC. Among 149 persons for whom information is available, illness onset dates range from July 7, 2012 to August 18, 2012.

Salmonella Ill persons range in age from less than 1 year to 100 years. Fifty-nine percent of ill persons are female. Among 149 persons with available information, 78 (52%) reported being hospitalized. Two deaths have been reported in Kentucky. Illnesses that occurred after August 7, 2012 might not yet be reported due to the time it takes between when a person becomes ill and when the illness is reported.

Agricultural experts say the frequent problems with cantaloupes come from the nature of the melons and sloppy agricultural practices. A cantaloupe's rough, porous skin is an easy target for bacteria, which cling to the bumps on its surface. Cantaloupes growing on the ground can also pick up dirt and germs from manure that runs off from livestock fields, or from farm workers. To reduce the risk of illness, people should refrigerate uneaten portions of cantaloupe immediately.

Aporte: Ninoska Cordero

Fuente: http://blog.usfoodsafety.com/2012/09/03/2-deaths204-sickened-79-hospitalized-from-salmonella-in-cantaloupe/

USA, Multistate Outbreak of Salmonella Braenderup Infections

Mexican mangoes are a likely source of this outbreak

Public health investigators are using DNA “fingerprints” of Salmonella  Braenderup obtained through diagnostic testing with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, or PFGE, to identify cases of illness that may be part of this outbreak. They are using data from PulseNet, the national subtyping network made up of state and local public health laboratories and federal food regulatory laboratories that performs molecular surveillance of foodborne infections.

Collaborative investigation efforts of state, local, and federal public health and regulatory agencies indicate that mangoes are a likely source of this outbreak.

A total of 103 persons infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Braenderup have been reported from 16 states. The majority of ill persons (78) have been reported from California. This number may change as more cases are confirmed. Most persons became ill during July. Among persons for whom information is available, illness onset dates range from July 3, 2012 to August 11, 2012. Ill persons range in age from 1 to 86 years, with a median age of 32 years old. Fifty-five percent of ill persons are female. Among 69 persons with available information, 25 (36%) patients reported being hospitalized. No deaths have been reported.

This PFGE pattern has been seen before in PulseNet, and in the past typically caused 2 to 3 cases per month. Therefore, some reported cases may not be part of this outbreak. Illnesses that occurred after August 5, 2012, might not be reported yet due to the time it takes between when a person becomes ill and when the illness is reported.

Investigation of the Outbreak:  State public health officials are interviewing ill persons to obtain information regarding foods they might have eaten and other exposures in the week before illness. Preliminary information indicates that mangoes are a likely source for the Salmonella Braenderup infections. Approximately 70% of ill persons interviewed report consuming mangoes in the week before becoming ill. Among ill persons in California, approximately 80% are of Hispanic ethnicity. Many of the ill persons in California report purchasing mangoes from Hispanic markets or grocery stores. Investigations are ongoing to determine the specific type and source of mangoes that might be linked with illness.

CDC and state and local public health partners are continuing laboratory surveillance through PulseNet to identify additional ill persons and to interview ill persons about foods eaten before becoming ill. FDA is continuing to work closely with CDC and state partners during this investigation. CDC will update the public on the progress of this investigation as information becomes available.

Source:  http://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/braenderup-08-12/index.html

Strategies for fighting Aspergillus flavus

Scientists Probe Yeast's Ability to Protect Tree Nuts

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists have moved a step closer to understanding the underlying mechanisms that enable a helpful yeast to disable a mold that attacks tree nuts such as almonds, pistachios, and walnuts. Their on going laboratory studies may help improve the effectiveness of the yeast, Pichia anomala, in thwarting the mold, A. flavus. The mold is of concern because it can produce aflatoxin, a natural carcinogen.Federal food safety standards, and quality control procedures at U.S. packinghouses, help ensure that tree nuts remain safe to eat. Nonetheless, growers and processors have a continuing interest in new, environmentally friendly ways to combat the A. flavus mold.In an experiment, the mold was exposed to the yeast, and, later, to several different compounds that fluoresce a distinctive red, or green, when evidence of specific changes in the mold's cells is detected. Results of these fluorescence assays, suggest that the yeast interfered with the mold's energy generating ATP system, vital for the mold's survival. The findings also suggest that the yeast damaged mold cell walls and cell membranes. Walls and membranes perform the essential role of protecting cell contents.In other work that has helped pave the way to current studies, the team used a different analytical procedure quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (polymerase chain reaction) assays to analyze the activity of certain P. anomala genes in the presence of the mold. Preliminary findings, reported at the annual national meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in 2010, suggest that exposing the yeast to the mold may have triggered the yeast to turn on genes that code for production of two enzymes PaEXG1 and PaEXG2. These enzymes are capable of degrading the mold's cell walls and causing damage to membranes.Though further studies are needed, these early, PCR-based findings point to gene-controlled mechanisms that may be involved in the cell wall and cell membrane damage observed in the fluorescence assays.

Fuente: www.ars.usda.gov

Aporte: María Rene Rey

Región de Los Lagos constituyó comisión para trabajar en inocuidad alimentaria

El 21 de agosto se firmó en la Intendencia Regional, el acuerdo para avanzar en materias que aseguren la producción y disponibilidad alimentaria.

Un mejoramiento en la coordinación, mayor comunicación y trabajo interministerial, en materias relacionadas a la inocuidad de los alimentos, se esperan en la Región de los Lagos para este año. Para realizar esta tarea, la Comisión Asesora Regional en Calidad e Inocuidad actuará como una réplica de la Agencia Chilena para la Calidad e Inocuidad Alimentaria, ACHIPIA en la Región de Los Lagos, buscando coordinar a las oficinas regionales de los servicios implicados en estas materias, permitiendo avanzar en la producción y disponibilidad de alimentos inocuos.

Nuri Gras, Secretaria Ejecutiva de ACHIPIA, asistió a la constitución de la comisión y señaló: "Buscamos hacer un levantamiento de las problemáticas que existen a nivel regional en estas materias y presentar soluciones con mayor rapidez. A través de ACHIPIA, las regiones pueden contar con un canal de comunicación directo con la comisión presidencial"

El Intendente Regional, Juan Sebastián Montes destacó el real compromiso que existe en el Gobierno del Presidente Sebastián Piñera en trabajar en inocuidad alimentaria "Se trata de proteger los derechos de las personas y avanzar en materia de competitividad del sector alimentario regional, al mismo tiempo de garantizar el prestigio que el país tiene en la inocuidad y en la calidad de los productos de exportación", señaló el Intendente.

El Seremi de Agricultura, Rodrigo Mardones, será el coordinador y secretario Ejecutivo de esta instancia, correspondiéndole dar seguimiento a las reuniones mensuales que se concreten y coordinando el plan de trabajo. La autoridad del agro señaló: "Con estas comisiones esperamos un aporte directo a la regionalización, logrando una mayor descentralización en la toma de decisiones en materia de inocuidad y calidad de los alimentos".

En la oportunidad, se dio a conocer que la misión de estas comisiones era asesorar al Intendente en todas las materias relativas a la calidad e inocuidad de los alimentos, atendiendo las particularidades propias de cada zona y coordinando a los organismos públicos regionales competentes en materia de inocuidad de los alimentos. Esto sin perjuicio de las atribuciones y funciones propias de cada servicio.

Fuente: http://www.achipia.cl/

Aporte: Fernanda Espinoza

Bagged salad recalled for potential Listeria contamination

The sample was collected through the USDA's Microbiological Data Program.

Dole Fresh Vegetables is recalling 1,039 cases of bagged salad due to the potential that it may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

The California-based company issued the voluntary recall Wednesday after a sample of its Dole Italian Blend taken by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes.

The sample was collected as a part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Microbiological Data Program (MDP), a small federal program that provides funding to 11 state agencies for produce surveillance.

While MDP was responsible for collecting the sample, it did not conduct the Listeria test. "We at North Carolina did not do the testing on their product," Daniel Ragan, Director of the Food & Drug Protection Division of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, told Food Safety News. However, "The sample was collected through the USDA's Microbiological Data Program," he confirmed.

MDP was slated to be shut down in July of this year after being zeroed out in the Obama Administration's 2013 budget proposal, but USDA decided to extend the program until the end of the year after media attention prompted a public demand to keep it going. 

Although the product is now 3 days past its use-by date, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is asking retailers to check their inventories and store shelves to confirm that none of the recalled product is in the warehouse or available to customers.

Dole Fresh Vegetables has contacted retailers to which the tainted salads were distributed and is in the process of ensuring that the recalled product is taken off the market. 

Multistate Outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium Infections Linked to Cantaloupe

Many patients (31, 48%) reported being hospitalized. Two deaths have been reported in Kentucky

CDC is collaborating with public health officials in several states and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate a multistate outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium infections. Joint investigation efforts indicate that cantaloupe grown in southwestern Indiana is a likely source of this outbreak.  As a result of the initial investigations by the state health departments in Indiana and Kentucky, a farm in southwestern Indiana has contacted its distributors, which reach outside Indiana into other states, and is withdrawing its cantaloupe from the market place. The farm has agreed to cease distributing cantaloupes for the rest of the growing season.

Public health investigators are using DNA “fingerprints” of Salmonella obtained through diagnostic testing with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, or PFGE, to identify cases of illness that may be part of this outbreak. They are using data from PulseNet, the national subtyping network made up of state and local public health laboratories and federal food regulatory laboratories that performs molecular surveillance of foodborne infections.

A total of 141 persons infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Typhimurium have been reported from 20 states.  The number of ill people identified in each state is as follows:  Alabama (7), Arkansas (3), California (2), Georgia (1), Illinois (17), Indiana (13), Iowa (7), Kentucky (50), Michigan (6), Minnesota (3), Missouri (9), Mississippi (2), New Jersey (1), North Carolina (3), Ohio (3), Pennsylvania (2), South Carolina (3), Tennessee (6), Texas (1), and Wisconsin (2).

Among persons for whom information is available, illness onset dates range from July 7, 2012 to August 4, 2012. Ill persons range in age from less than 1 to 92 years, with a median age of 49 years old. Fifty-five percent of ill persons are female. Among 64 persons with available information, 31 (48%) patients reported being hospitalized. Two deaths have been reported in Kentucky.

The outbreak can be visually described with a chart showing the number of persons who became ill each day. This chart is called an epidemic curve or epi curve.  This pattern has been seen before in PulseNet, and in the past typically caused 10-15 cases per month. Illnesses that occurred after July 26, 2012, might not be reported yet due to the time it takes between when a person becomes ill and when the illness is reported.

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/typhimurium-cantaloupe-08-12/index.html

E. coli outbreak in Hokkaido kills seven, sickens over 100 others.

Most affected were elderly women who were fed the dirty cabbage at nursing homes.

A major food-poisoning outbreak in Hokkaido has killed seven people, including a 4-year-old child, and sickened more than 100 others who ate pickled cabbage tainted with E. coli bacteria, health officials said Sunday.

In what is being described as the nation's deadliest food-poisoning outbreak in a decade, six of those who died were elderly women who were fed the dirty cabbage at nursing homes. According to health bulletins issued by the Hokkaido Prefectural Government, the six women died at nursing homes in Sapporo and Ebetsu. The 4-year-old girl died on Aug. 11 after exhibiting food-poisoning symptoms, also in Sapporo. Some 103 people have apparently been sickened by the same item — a lightly pickled Chinese cabbage produced in late July by a Sapporo-based company, the bulletins said. 

In Ebetsu, a female centenarian died early Sunday from multiple-organ failure, nine days after being hospitalized and 18 days after eating the cabbage, A Hokkaido health official said    "She ate the pickles at breakfast at her nursing home on Aug. 1," health official Narihiko Kawamura said by telephone.

The Sapporo girl died five days after developing E. coli symptoms, an official at the Sapporo public health center said. "She and her family used to eat the company's pickled cabbage, which they often bought at a local supermarket," the Sapporo official, Seiichi Miyahara, said by telephone. "But it is not certain when she ate the contaminated product."

Two of the other nursing home fatalities were in their 90s and died on Thursday, also in Ebetsu, about 10 days after being hospitalized with E. coli symptoms.

"It is not easy to determine how the bacteria got mixed with the pickled cabbage," the official said. "We don't know whether there was a major problem with sanitation control at the company yet."

In 2002, nine people were killed by E. coli infections after eating a marinated chicken and vegetable dish at a hospital and an annex that was a nursing home for the aged in Utsunomiya more than 370 people were hit by suspected food poisoning during weekend sporting events in Tochigi Prefecture. 

Approximately 200 people attending a junior high school field hockey tournament in the city of Nikko fell ill on Saturday, while about 170 people, many of them middle school students, complained of food poisoning symptoms at a softball event in Nasushiobara. People at the two events had boxed lunches prepared by the same company in Nasushiobara. One student was hospitalized, but presently she is not in serious condition.

La ecoetiqueta permitirá en el 2015 distinguir entre pescados Europeos y foráneos

Al aplicarse esta norma de la UE el consumidor sabrá donde exactamente fue capturado el pescado 
La idea de la ecoetiqueta, es que a partir del 2015 se pueda distinguir el pescado europeo del capturado por terceros países. De esta manera se le podrá ofrecer al consumidor una garantía de calidad.
El presidente de la Comisión de Pesca del Parlamento Europeo, Gabriel Mato, manifestó que la ecoetiqueta europea será un distintivo de calidad y que permitirá ofrecer al consumidor de que este producto sea de calidad.
Garantizara que los productos que tengan esta ecoetiqueta, sean europeos, cumplan con todos los requisitos y los va a diferenciar de países terceros.
De acuerdo a esto, Mato ha comentado “QUE SOMOS EXIGENTES” con los productos del mar europeo, mientras que los países terceros no cumplen con las mismas exigencias.
Además ha abundado que la fecha que operara la ecoetiqueta será del desembarco del pescado y quienes emitan las etiquetas estarán bajo el auspicio de  la Unión Europea.
El Presidente de la Comisión de Pesca del  Parlamento Europeo declaró que  al aplicarse esta norma el consumidor sabrá donde exactamente fue capturado el pescado y con ello se mejorara la información.

Fuente: http://www.agromeat.com
Aporte: María Fernanda Vera L.

Capturan responsable de venta de licor adulterado en Colombia

Aguardiente adulterado causó dos muertes y  más de 50 intoxicados.

Las autoridades reportaron la captura del hombre que distribuyó licor adulterado en un bar de Palmira, Valle del Cauca, Colombia; que dejó como resultado la muerte de cinco personas y cerca de 10 intoxicadas. Según el reporte oficial, el acusado fue capturado en el barrio Simón Bolívar de la ciudad de Cali, el Juzgado 6 de Conocimiento le dictó medida de aseguramiento en establecimiento carcelario.

Así mismo, la Fiscalía le imputó los delitos de homicidio agravado con dolo eventual, corrupción de alimentos y usurpación de marcas y patentes.

La acusación

El capturado es señalado de la muerte de Kelly Johana Suárez, Luis Mario Ospinal y Jaime Durán, ocurrida después de que consumieron el licor adulterado en el establecimiento público ubicado en la vía a Candelaria.

Los testimonios y la prueba

El propietario del bar declaró ante las autoridades que el detenido le vendió seis botellas y seis canecas de aguardiente, a precio oficial.

Después de ese testimonio, los investigadores allanaron una vivienda en el barrio Simón Bolívar, donde encontraron dos canecas de licor, al parecer, falsificado.

La Policía rastrea en el municipio la distribución de este licor, y siguen las investigaciones el caso en el que se consumió aguardiente adulterado en una fiesta de El Cerrito, hecho en el que murieron dos personas y 50 más resultaron intoxicadas.

Fuente: Clubdarwin.net

Aporte: Marcela Blanco

Recall de productos elaborados con manzanas contaminadas con Listeria monocytogenes

Empresa de frutas realiza recall de un gran número de sus productos por sospecha de presencia de la bacteria.

Una empresa productora de frutas y vegetales de Nueva Jersey esta realizando un recall de 293.488 cajas y 296.224 productos individuales que contienen manzana que se sospecha pueden estar contaminados con Listeria monocytogenes.

El patógeno se detectó en los equipos de la línea productiva usada en la compañía para elaborar procesados de manzana que son comercializados en tiendas de comida rápida como McDonalds, Burger King y otros locales en EEUU.

Los productos sujetos al recall son manzanas picadas que se agregan a la formulación de productos listos para el consumo (“readytoeat”) dentro de los que se incluyen barras con cereales, snacks, yogurts y otros que se distribuyen en 36 estados de EEUU.

Hasta la fecha no se han reportado casos conectados a los productos sospechosos.

Fuente: Food Safety News

Aporte: Eduardo Castillo Franzoy