Raw poultry leads sources of listeria in chicken plants: study

Incoming raw poultry is the primary source of Listeria monocytogenes contamination in chicken cooking plants.

Researchers of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service and the University of Georgia conducted the study in a new plant before and after operations began, allowing them to track sources of contamination including employees, incoming fresh air, raw meat and the surrounding environment.

Potential sources were tested by taking samples of soil and water around and near the plant's exterior, and by testing heavily traveled floor surfaces after shift changes. Researchers also collected and tested samples from incoming air from air vent filters and from monthly swabs of incoming raw meat. The plant was free of listeria when first built; floor drains were then sampled almost monthly to determine when the facility would become colonized with the pathogen. Four months after operations began, listeria was detected in floor drains, suggesting the organism had been introduced by an outside source.

None of the bacteria was detected from any floor samples in the plants entryways, locker room or cafeteria or from air vent filters. Incoming raw poultry meat was the only source consistently found to be positive for listeria, the study concluded. The scientists said quality assurance in the test plant was "exceptional" and included an extensive, proactive sampling plan.

Fuente: www.meatingplace.com

Pennsylvania Dairy's Raw Milk Permit Suspended

Campylobacter jejuni was found in creamery's raw milk
The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture announced Thursday that it had suspended the permit allowing Pasture Maid Creamery in New Castle, PA, to sell raw milk for human consumption. The move came Monday after testing revealed Campylobacter in the creamery's raw milk.

Campylobacter jejuni is found in a wide variety of healthy domestic and wild animals including cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese, wild birds, dogs, cats, rodents, and marine mammals. The bacteria usually live in the intestines as part of the animal's normal flora, and is shed in feces.

Most Campylobacter species do not cause any signs of illness in the animal host.Ingestion of Campylobacter jejuni by humans causes can diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, headache, and muscle pain. Symptoms typically appear two to five days after exposure. Most cases are mild, do not require hospitalization, and are self-limited; however, Campylobacter jejuni infection, or campylobacteriosis, can be severe and life-threatening.

Campylobacteriosis may cause appendicitis or infect other organs. It can also enter the blood stream. Guillain-Barre syndrome is a severe complication of campylobacteriosis that can lead to paralysis. An estimated one in 1,000 cases of Campylobacter jejuni infection results in death.According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, at least six people became ill with campylobacteriosis after consuming raw milk from Pasture Maid Creamery in February.

Freezing raw milk will not kill Campylobacter jejuni; anyone who has purchased raw milk from Pasture Maid Creamery is urged to discard the milk.

Anyone ill with symptoms of campylobacteriosis should contact their health care provider and report their illness to the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
Source: FoodSafetyNews

Norovirus es el responsable de cuadros entéricos en Antofagasta

Autoridades de salud de la región confirmaron que el Laboratorio de Virología de la Universidad de Chile identificó el agente causal del brote de cuadros gastrointestinales que afecta a la Región de Antofagasta.

Según los resultados entregados por la Seremi de Salud, se trata del "norovirus", que se caracteriza por causar cuadros de diarrea aguda, dolor abdominal y vómitos, de aproximadamente tres días de duración, pero que -por lo general- no provoca deshidratación en los pacientes.
El agente fue aislado en 16 muestras de deposiciones. Los "norovirus" se encuentran en las deposiciones o vómitos de personas infectadas o en superficies que han estado en contacto con personas enfermas.
Esta situación viene a confirmar la hipótesis dada a conocer por el Consejo Regional Antofagasta del Colegio Médico, lo que debiera obligar a las autoridades a acelerar al máximo el retiro de basura dispuesta en contenedores que permanecen desde hace semanas sin un correcto aseo en esta ciudad.
Esta situación resulta preocupante, debido al notorio aumento de vectores como moscas y roedores cercanos a los domicilios, lo que se suma a la proximidad de Semana Santa, fecha en que cada año se produce un colapso de desperdicios en esta ciudad.

Contagios

De acuerdo al informe sanitario, este virus es fácilmente transmisible de una persona a otra. Para prevenir su aparición se recomienda un frecuente lavado de manos, con agua y jabón, antes de consumir alimentos y después de ir al baño o mudar bebés.
También se sugiere consumo de agua potable o bien agua hervida (en los casos que esto no sea posible), además de consumir pescados y mariscos cocidos.
La semana pasada, la subsecretaria de Salud Pública, Liliana Jadué, se reunió en Antofagasta con las principales autoridades de salud de para analizar el aumento de enfermedades gastrointestinales en la región, donde ya han sido notificados más de 12 mil casos. Tras la visita se reforzó el plan de acción para enfrentar el brote entérico y, junto con ello, se reforzó la presencia de personal en los servicios de urgencia.
La Seremi de Salud informó que se mantiene vigilancia sobre todos los centros asistenciales de la región, los que deben notificar los casos atendidos.
El organismo también manifestó que desde la aparición del brote, el pasado 8 de marzo, se han entregado más de mil volantes con recomendaciones para prevenir enfermedades entéricas.

Vectores

El presidente del Regional Antofagasta de la Orden, doctor Aliro Bolados, aseguró que el comportamiento de este tipo de virus obliga a extremar las medidas de precaución, principalmente de aseo personal, como también lo que guarda relación con el colapso de basura en Antofagasta.
"Es un germen muy poco frecuente y que posee una altísima tasa de diseminación. En Inglaterra antecedió la aparición del brote de A H1N1, por lo que hay que estar atentos", puntualizó.
Bolados alertó además que el "norovirus" es altamente transmisible a través de vectores, como moscas o roedores, por lo que no se descarta una relación con los problemas sanitarios que existen debido a la acumulación de basura en los contenedores por largo tiempo, tal como ha ocurrido en la ciudad.

Fuente:http://www.colegiomedico.cl/Default.aspxtabid=760&selectmoduleid=2494&ArticleID=391

Aporte: Gisela González H.

Confirman caso de Cólera en Antofagasta

Las muestras de la niña enferma fueron enviadas al ISP en Santiago para establecer si se trata del tipo epidémico. Sería el primero en 12 años.

El Hospital Regional de Antofagasta detectó este lunes el caso de una niña de un año y 6 meses infectada con cólera.

La información fue anunciada por el Dr. Antonio Cárdenas, jefe del Servicio de Pediatría del centro asistencial, al "Mercurio de Antofagasta", donde confirmó la presencia de la bacteria Vibrio cholerae en la menor.

Ante el hallazgo, las muestras de la pequeña fueron enviadas al Instituto de Salud Pública (ISP), en Santiago, para esclarecer si corresponde o no al brote epidémico.

De comprobarse lo anterior, sería el primero de este tipo en 12 años, dado que el último de ellos se registró en 1998.

La detección del germen ocurre en medio de una crisis por la acumulación de basura en Antofagasta, luego que el municipio le caducara el contrato a la empresa encargada de recoger los desechos.

Asimismo, se da justo cuando la ciudad ha sido afectada por un brote diarreico que ya totaliza 13 mil personas víctimas del Norovirus.

Fuente: http://www.emol.com/

A “Watershed Moment” for Food Safety in USA.

Nearly 400 experts gathered in Washington DC to discuss the best tools for measuring progress on food safety.

The meeting was hosted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and was attended by leaders in science, public health, consumer advocacy, and the food industry.

Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, special assistant to the President for Justice and regulatory policy at the White House Domestic Policy Council, emphasized the importance of measuring the food safety burden in order to comply with the principles laid out in the President’s Food Safety Working Group, which are prioritizing prevention, strengthening surveillance and enforcement, and improving response recovery.

Deputy Undersecretary for food safety at USDA, Jerold Mande said: “The importance of this meeting can be described in one sentence: What doesn’t get measured doesn’t get done”. “This is a watershed moment in food safety” he added, “These opportunities do not come often. But when they do, they significantly change our trajectory as businesses and regulators alike”

Mande also discussed the importance of the measuring progress and said how crucial is to know exact data (number of people getting sick, contaminants, implicated food, etc), before decisions are taken in this matters.

Challenges in estimating the burden of foodborne illness.

There are a great number of challenges that must be faced in order to estimate the total burden of foodborne illness, being one of the most importants that only a small fraction of illness are actually confirmed by laboratory testing and reported to public health agencies. This leads, for example, to problems in choosing which diseases must be put under routine surveillance.

CDC is currently updating its foodborne illness estimates, wich have remained the same since 1999: 76 millions illnesses, 325000 hospitalizations, and 5000 deaths annually.

CDC officials and experts are all cautioning, however, that whatever the new numbers are, they cannot be compared to the 1999 estimates to indicate a trend, as the methodologies and data sources are fundamentally different. Finally, they expect to release the new results within a year, although with limited resources and ongoing epidemiological investigations, the timing remains uncertain.

Source: http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/04/watershed-moment-for-food-safety-says-mande/#comments

Researchers Report Progress on E. coli Test

Pathogen and its toxins can be detected in food samples

It’s not the pathogenic E. coli O157:H7 pathogen itself that harms people who eat ground beef or other foods that contain it. Rather, it’s the toxins that this E. coli produces that do the actual damage. Proper testing of food should look for both, though, since it is possible for one to be present without the other.
That usually means two separate tests. But now scientists with the Agricultural Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture report significant advances toward a single test that can detect both pathogenic E. coli O157:H7 and its toxins.
J. Mark Carter, leader of a research unit at the research service’s office in Albany, Calif., said the test, described last week at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, uses tiny polystyrene beads that are coated with antibodies for the proteins found on the bacteria and two of the major toxins it produces. The beads are mixed with a sample of ground beef that has been further chopped up in a blender, and then separated from the sample and analyzed.
Dr. Carter said that in addition to its two-in-one nature, the test is also quicker than current E. coli tests, with results in less than 24 hours rather than about a week. In addition to ground beef, he said, it could be used on lettuce and other vegetables. More work is required, but the plan is to have a commercialized test in a few years that could be used by governments and the food industry itself.
Source: NYTimes

Prevent Outbreaks: Send Sick Foodhandlers Home

Many real life outbreaks analysis confirm that when sick foodhandlers are, in fact, the cause of an outbreak, the results can be widespread contamination of many different foods, leading to many illnesses.

Sick foodhandlers are a problem at many restaurants in USA and all around the world, being the source of many outbreaks of foodborne disease. Currently, in the Shigella outbreak linked to a Subway restaurant in Lombard, Illinois, sick foodhandlers are believed to have been the cause of the outbreak wich already has at least 113 confirmed illnesses. Likely, this number only scratches the surface when it comes to counting all outbreak victims. The number is more likely upwards of 200 to 300, if not more.

The Lombard Subway outbreak is reminiscent of another major Chicago-area outbreak, occurred in June and July 2003. In this case The Lake County Health Department concluded its investigation into a Salmonella outbreak at a Chili's restaurant located in Vernon Hills, Illinois, where the restaurant employees had used poor sanitation and food handling practices, including operating without hot water for an entire day, and operating without any running water whatsoever for the lunch rush on another day. More importantly Lake County stated that 28 Chili's employees had tested positive for Salmonella.

It’s clear that no restaurant owner can claim that they didn’t know better. The reason, of course, is that the law speaks very clearly on the issue of employees who work while ill saying that: "No person, while affected with a disease in a communicable form that can be transmitted by foods or who is a carrier of organisms that cause such a disease or while afflicted with a boil, or infected wound, or an acute respiratory infection, shall work in a food service establishment in any capacity in which there is a likelihood of such person contaminating food or food-contact surfaces with pathogenic organisms or transmitting disease to other persons."

One thing that restaurants can do to guard against foodhandler-caused outbreaks is to have a sick leave policy. The policy must not only forbid working while ill with any symptoms of gastrointestinal illness or influenza, but also provide for compensation to employees who elect to do the right thing and stay away from work while ill, or, at the very least, pay the sick day as any other working day without discounting it.

Unfortunately, these outbreaks are evidence that restaurants are not getting the message about sick employees. For example, The Institute for Women's Policy Research, an advocacy group, looked at job benefits nationally and it found as many as 85% of food service workers don't have paid sick days (the worst showing for any group). Also Dr. Tom Smith from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago found in a study at workers broadly (not just the food industry) that people without paid sick days are more likely to go to work when they feel ill and that 68% of people without paid sick days have gone in with a contagious illness like the flu. The reasons are, between many others, that some workers, especially those who get paid by the hour, come in because they need the money. Others simply don't want to give the boss a reason to think they aren't committed to the job.

This are definitely issues that must come in consideration for any restaurants that want to avoid losing everything in a major outbreak of foodborne disease.

Source: http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/03/prevent-outbreaks-send-sick-foodhandlers-home/

Campylobacteriosis, unpasteurized milk (Michigan)

The US FDA and several state health agencies are warning of an outbreak of campylobacteriosis associated with drinking raw milk.

The agency said at least 12 confirmed illnesses have been recently reported in Michigan. Symptoms of campylobacteriosis include diarrhea, abdominal pain, and fever. The FDA said it is collaborating with health officials in Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana in investigating the outbreak linked to raw milk produced by the Forest Grove Dairy in Middlebury, Indiana. Raw milk is unpasteurized milk from hoofed mammals, such as cows, sheep, or goats. Since 1987, the FDA has required all milk packaged for human consumption to be pasteurized before being delivered into interstate commerce. Pasteurization, a process that heats milk to a specific temperature for a set period of time, kills bacteria responsible for diseases that also include typhoid fever, tuberculosis, and diphtheria.

Fuente:www.promedmail.org

New two-in-one test for E. coli and its toxins

Scientists have developed a new two-in-one test that detects both E. coli O157 bacteria and the toxins it produces.

Currently food processors have to employ two separate tests because the toxins that E. coli produces, which actually cause food poisoning, can be present in food even after the bacteria is dead and gone. This testing can be time consuming with results taking three to five days to come through.

Double threat
Scientists at the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Albany, California therefore set out to create a test that protects against the double threat of E. coli and its toxins.
Project leader John Mark Carter presented the results of the research this week at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
Carter explained that the test developed from this work should make it easier for processors to fight the threat from E. coli.
“Finding a few E. coli bacteria in a large sample of ground beef or other food is like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Carter says. “This new method makes the needle much easier to find, compared to standard methods. But improvements in sampling and sensitivity are still needed.”
Although Carter admitted that some refinement is called for he said it has the potential to make a big difference.

Commercialisation
Indeed, Carter and his fellow USDA scientists are working with Luminex Corporation to commercialise the E. coli test and hope that it will be quickly adapted by government agencies involved in food inspection as well as meat processors.
“Our test may be used in meat processing plants to allow in-house testing of products prior to sale,” said Carter. This would reduce the frequency of foodborne illness, reduce product recalls, and enhance public health while reducing annual cost for food testing.”
One of the key tangible advantages highlighted is time saving. Unlike the existing tests for which results can take up to five days to be processed the researchers behind the new two-in-one test say the waiting time is just 24 hours.

Plastic beads
The new test uses microscopic plastic beads containing a fluorescent dye that are coated with antibodies that lock onto proteins or antigens present E. coli and its two main toxins. During the test, the beads are mixed together with ground beef or other food samples and then separated and run through an instrument, identifying beads that have latched onto the E. coli antigens.
Carter and his team are now working on adapting the test to detect other foodborne microbes, such as Salmonella and Listeria.

Fuente: www.foodqualitynews.com

Listeria Still Present at New York Fish Company

America's seafood processing industry seems to still be learning about how to implement Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point plans.

This week the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released five "Warning Letters" to seafood processors that were largely about HACCP failures. The most serious violations were found in the Brooklyn-based NY Fish Company.
For the third time, FDA inspectors have taken samples that returned positive results for Listeria inside the NY Fish Co. seafood processing facility at 738 Chester St. in Brooklyn.
"Once established in a production area, humans or machinery can facilitate the pathogen's movement to and contamination of food-contact surfaces and finished product," wrote Ronald M. Pace, FDA's New York District director. "These repeat findings environmental and finished product positives demonstrate an inability to adequately clean and sanitize the facility and to correct practices that lead to the contamination of finished product with L. monocytogenes."

Listeria was found inside the NY Fish processing facility after inspections that occurred from May 27 to June 3, 2009; Sept. 10 to 26, 2009, and Oct. 20 to Nov. 3, 2009. NY Fish last year recalled vacuum packaged smoked salmon and salted herring products after FDA found the Listeria contamination.

After the recall, the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets stopped production at NY Fish "in an attempt to clean and sanitize" the facility. But in the just released March 10, 2010 "Warning Letter" to the Brooklyn company, Pace said the pathogen "continues to reside in your facility."
Across the country in Auburn, WA, the Seoul Trading Company received a "Warning Letter" about its food storage, repacking, and importer facility.
Pests, mainly live and dead moths, were found on products throughout the facility. Gasoline was being stored around food. There was not adequate screening to prevent pests from entering the facility and gaps between the bay doors and the warehouse.