Salmonella outbreak in Denmark
I have an affinity for the Danes. I spent five summers working with two Danish home builders in Ontario, who introduced me to 45% Danish Schnapps, pate and beet snacks, which Amy and I munched on our balcony yesterday, and when I go to meetings in Copenhagen, they offer beer at the 10:30 a.m. coffee break; and noon; and afternoon coffee (beer).
My friend John the carpenter who fought in WW II (last name Kierkegaard, like the philosopher, Soren, baby Sorenne, get it?) would also have his morning, noon and afternoon beers in Ontario, but would at least admit, “The work, after some beers, it’s not so great when looked at the next day.”
This morning, Denmark is admitting it may have some problems with Salmonella.
The National Food Directorate says that 40 people have contracted Salmonella Enteritidis since May, probably as a result of fried eggs or raw eggs that have not been heated properly.
In several cases, the eggs have been traced back to the Møllebjerggård Ægpakkeri egg packaging plant and a producer that delivers eggs to the plant has been put under observation.
The Directorate has ordered eggs from the producer in question to be withdrawn from the market.
Could credit card receipts save children's lives?
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health has confirmed a genetic match for an infection of E. coli O157 among three children who developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) this year.
The Institute reported this week,
“The first child became ill in January, the second in February and the third in March. In addition, a sibling of one of the children has also developed HUS, but it has not yet been confirmed whether this is the same bacterial strain.”
One of the four children—all of which are under the age of ten—has died.
The source of the outbreak has yet to be determined. County food safety officials are currently questioning the families of victims on the children's meals and testing leftover food, while federal officials are seeking information on any further possible cases (i.e. persons, and particularly children, with bloody diarrhea who test positive for enterohemorrhagic E. coli).
I wonder if they’ve looked into the families’ grocery store receipts?
A peer-reviewed article in the April 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases reports that the source of a 2007 outbreak of E. coli in Denmark was found using credit card information.
Investigators had struggled to determine the source of a strain of E. coli O26 that infected 20 Danish children between February and May of 2007.
Flesh and Stone reports that when interviews failed to yield any likely suspect foods, investigators turned to shopping lists.
“Parents in seven families provided their credit card information and a list of supermarkets where they had shopped. The two supermarket chains that the parents had used most often agreed to help with the investigation. The stores searched their central computers for the precise amount paid and the date and the location of the shop.
“From there, investigators determined that five families had purchased the same brand of fermented, organic beef sausage. A sixth family was linked to the same sausage brand through shopping records provided by the kindergarten attended by two children who became infected with the same E. coli strain, STEC O26. An unopened sample of the sausage also tested positive for the strain.”
Authors of the CID article acknowledged that relying on memory to identify similarities among the diets of outbreak victims diets is often unsuccessful and found credit card information to be “a strong tool in the [current] investigation.”
Investigation of a similar outbreak of E. coli O157 in Iceland successfully used the same method some months later. It could be worth a try for Norway.
Botulism in Danish baby food?
Have you noticed a trend? Blog posts at 4 a.m., bad baby metaphors, bad writing cause my brains are mush?
Must be a baby in the house.
The Norwegian Food Safety Authority (NFSA) writes on their website that there are suspicions that Hipp's fruit purée with banana and apricot may contain Colstridium Botulinum, following an outbreak of illness in Denmark.
They are now recommending that all parents who have bought jars marked L35655, with a use-by date of 31.12.08 should throw them away.
The Danish Food Safety Authority has sent the fruit purée for test ananlysis, and a final confirmation as to whether the food is poisonous will come at the end of the week.
A quick trip to the Hipp Organic Baby Food web site finds lots of what isn’t in Hipp baby food like melamine or Irish pork, but no mention of botulism.
822 ill, 6 dead in Denmark Salmonella outbreak
A memorandum from Denmark’s national serum institute, Statens Serum Institut to the Parliamentary Health Committee, reveals that as of Sept. 15, 2008, 822 cases of Salmonella Typharium U292 had been reported in Denmark and six deaths in people who may have been suffering from other conditions.
The source of the Salmonella outbreak, which dates back to the summer, remains under investigation.
330 confirmed with Salmonella in Denmark; 30 new cases per day
Kare Moelbak of the Ministry of Health said 330 cases of the relatively rare Salmonella typhimurium U292 have been confirmed and about a quarter of those people have been hospitalized.Moelbak said he suspects the source is some sort of Danish food product distributed only in Denmark, since neighboring countries have not reported an outbreak. They believe it probably is meat, but they do not know which product.
