South Africa's listeria crisis shows the first of the culprits
A cold, processed meat product made by South Africa’s biggest producer of consumer foods is the cause of the ongoing outbreak, which has a stunning 27 percent fatality rate, informs Food Safety News magazine.
According to Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, South Africa’s Minister of Health, the crisis was triggered by two unrelated brands of "polony" made by the Tiger Brands unit of Enterprise Foods and Rainbow Chicken Limited. The minister said the polony products are being recalled but the threat is still present as all processed meat products that are sold as ready-to-eat could be infected.
"We advise members of the public to avoid all processed meat products that are sold as ready-to-eat. While we know that polony is definitely implicated, there is a risk of cross-contamination of other ready-to-eat processed meat products, either at production, distribution or retail. Listeria on the exterior casing (packaging) of polony can be transferred to other products it comes into contact with, including viennas, russians, frankfurters, other sausages, and other cold meat products that are typically not cooked before eating", explained the official.
The source of the present outbreak is the Enterprise Food production facility located in Polokwane where 16 samples of polony were tested positive for the Listeria monocytogenes outbreak strain known as ST6. Since January 2017, the listeria outbreak killed 180 of approximately 900 cases confirmed. 43% of the victims were babies.
For now, Rainbow Chicken Limited (RCL) announced that it is suspending all production of its Rainbow polony brand. An RCL production facility is under investigation in the Listeria probe.
Several southern African states, including Namibia, Mozambique, Malawi, Botswana and Zambia, have banned processed meat from South Africa after it said it had identified the source of a food poisoning outbreak.
(Photo source: Southern Eye)
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