A student at Greenway Park Elementary School in east Charlotte, North Carolina has been diagnosed with salmonella.
Health officials sent a letter home to parents Wednesday afternoon informing parents whose children have any of the symptoms to should keep them home and not send them to school.
The Mecklenburg County Health Department is also available to conduct testing of stool samples.
Juice comes in many different flavors and provides essential nutrients that help keep people healthy. Consumers today have numerous choices when it comes to drinking juice. One of the decisions they must make is whether to buy pasteurized or unpasteurized juice.
Though illness due to juice is rare, several outbreaks of diarrheal illness due to juice have been reported in the United States in the last decade. Most outbreaks of illness due to juice have been linked to untreated or inadequately treated juice products. Most juice sold in the United States is treated. One of the most common treatments used is pasteurization.
Pathogens sometimes found in unpasteurized juices:
Untreated, or raw, juice has not been treated in any way to kill pathogens that may be present. This type of juice may be found in the refrigerated sections of grocery stores, health-food stores, cider mills, and farm markets. Another form of untreated juice is untreated cider. One way to make this cider safer is to heat it to at least 170 degrees F.
Exchanging gerbils for reptiles as classroom pets only substitutes one problem for another, reports the Times Herald. Reptiles carry salmonella bacteria, which can spread to humans and cause serious illness.
Even indirect contact is dangerous because salmonella can live on countertops and other surfaces for days. Young children and people with weakened immune systems are especially susceptible.
The reptile trade is hazardous to human and animal health, in the Herald’s opinion. Reptiles have complex dietary and habitat needs that are difficult to meet. As much as 90% of wild-caught reptiles die in their first year of captivity because of physical trauma during capture and shipping or inadequate care afterward.
For public health and humane reasons, reptiles should not be pets, at home or in the classroom. While reptiles are fascinating to study, the Herald recommends to leave them in the wild.
Following the recently published report from England and Wales, Eurosurveillance reported a 60% reduction of Salmonella Enteritidis infections in Luxembourg in 2005 compared with the average annual number of cases in the period 2000-2004.
This is the largest annual decrease ever recorded by the national Salmonella reference laboratory since data collection began in 1990. The reasons for this major decrease are unclear.
The total number of S. Enteritidis infections in Luxembourg has been significantly reduced to levels last reported in the early 1990s. Further work is now needed to identify and determine more precisely the underlying causes behind the reduction and to investigate whether this reduction is sustainable in the future.
A new cross-border plan to control foodborne illness outbreaks North or South was launched today as part of a crackdown by health professionals seeking to curb the level of sickness caused by illnesses such as salmonella and E.coli.
The plan aims to ensure greater preparedness among health professionals in the event of having to manage and control an outbreak which involves both sides of the border. The cross-border plan defines roles and responsibilities for all the different statutory authorities and gives comprehensive information to facilitate more efficient co-ordination by all involved in managing a potential cross-border outbreak.
The plan was launched when public health professionals from across the island of Ireland met in Belfast to look at best practice for the prevention and control of foodborne illnesses such as salmonella and E.coli.
By working together at events such as the conference, health professionals could improve their ability to keep the communities healthy, said Cliodhna Foley-Nolan, Safefood`s director of human health and nutrition.
Snakes, lizards and tortoises have become popular pets, but owners of these and other reptiles must take precautions because they can harbor Salmonella - a potentially dangerous bacteria that can cause severe illness in humans.
"An estimated 70,000 people get Salmonella from contact with reptiles in the United States each year," said Richard J. Baltaro, M.D., Ph.D., FCAP, a pathologist and associate professor of pathology at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. "If you have a reptile as a pet you have to be extremely cautious when dealing with it."
Dr. Baltaro is a pathologist-a physician who treats patients with illnesses such as Salmonella through laboratory medicine. Dr. Baltaro received a Ph.D. in microbiology while studying the DNA antibiotic resistance in Salmonella bacteria.
In addition to reptiles, other animals such as baby chicks and ducklings can carry Salmonella. "Pocket pets" including rats, mice, rabbits, gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs and ferrets, as well as rodents that are bought to feed other animals (such as snakes), can also carry potentially dangerous bacteria.
To help prevent infections, anyone owning, buying or handling these animals should take the following precautions:
Reactive arthritis is a form of arthritis, or joint inflammation, that occurs as a "reaction" to an infection elsewhere in the body. Inflammation is a characteristic reaction of tissues to injury or disease and is marked by swelling, redness, heat, and pain. Besides this joint inflammation, reactive arthritis is associated with two other symptoms: redness and inflammation of the eyes and inflammation of the urinary tract. These symptoms may occur alone, together, or not at all.
Reactive arthritis is also known as Reiter's syndrome.
The bacterium most often associated with reactive arthritis is Chlamydia trachomatis, commonly known as chlamydia. It is usually acquired through sexual contact. Some evidence also shows that respiratory infections with Chlamydia pneumonia may trigger reactive arthritis.
Infections in the digestive tract that may trigger reactive arthritis include Salmonella, Shigella, Yersinia, and Campylobacter. People may become infected with these bacteria after eating or handling improperly prepared food, such as meats that are not stored at the proper temperature.
Hamilton, Ontario, public health officials were cited as saying that eating sprouts is hazardous and are telling consumers to eat them at their own risk.
The warning includes all types such as mung bean sprouts, radish and alfalfa. The health department warning is in response to an on-going investigation which links mung bean sprouts produced by a Toronto company to outbreaks of salmonella and E. coli O157:H7 across Ontario. Mung bean sprouts, commonly referred to as bean sprouts, are the long, white variety.
According to the Belleville Intelligencer, the suspect sprouts were originally recalled provincewide on Nov. 23. The health department lifted the ban Dec. 8, when the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care declared the product safe.
On Dec. 24, however, an alert was sent out from the ministry announcing that the Toronto producer had resumed production and distribution of bean sprouts using seeds that were under detention. The affected product has been recalled but, this time around, Hamilton's health department is not imposing a ban on all sprouts.
At Hua Long Supermarket, Shi has posted a handwritten sign above his two bins of mung sprouts, advising consumers the product does not comes from Toronto Sun Wah. He has been getting lots of inquiries from consumers informed by daily updates on the salmonella outbreak in the Chinese media.
He has been using another producer, Kim Kon Bean Sprout, for 10 years without a problem.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued an alert telling consumers not to purchase sprouts produced by Toronto Sun Wah Trading, also known as Hollend Enterprises, due to salmonella contamination, reports The Montreal Gazette.
Ontario public health officials traced a salmonella outbreak to mung sprouts from Sun Wah Trading on Nov. 25, after analyzing 266 laboratory-confirmed cases of individuals infected with the bacteria reported to the Ministry of Health that month. Normally, about 20 to 25 cases a month are reported at this time of year.
Bassam Annous, a microbiologist at the Agriculture Department's food safety technologies research unit in Wyndmoor, Pennyslvania, has been experimenting on how pasteurization may reduce levels of salmonella infections on fruits and vegetables.
He said the process wouldn't work with leafy vegetables or apples because it causes lettuce to wilt and apples to turn brown, but he said there's no reason it couldn't be used for citrus fruits, avocados and perhaps tomatoes.
"If the rind is thick, the flesh is not affected," he said. Annous said there's another benefit -- the process kills other pathogens that cause produce to decay, and so the treated produce lasts longer on the shelf.
The process involves immersing the fruits in water heated to 169 degrees Fahrenheit for three minutes then sealing each fruit in a plastic bag to prevent re-contamination before rapidly cooling the produce in ice water.
Annous said colonies of salmonella often aren't affected by chlorine rinses and other sanitation measures processors use because the bacteria cling to the rind and form a protective biofilm around them. Pathogens left on the rind of fruits and vegetables are transferred to the flesh of the produce during cutting or processing.
How do supermarkets try to prevent the sale of tainted fruits and vegetables? The question came to mind following news that produce-related salmonella outbreaks have multiplied and are catching up to chicken as a major culprit in food poisoning incidents.
This just adds to consumer worries about everything from avian flu to E.coli, says Goody Solomon of the Washington Examiner. A good deal of blame falls on today's lengthy route from farm to table and the resulting frequent handling, especially of the precut and prepackaged.
Expansion of imports adds to the complications. Guilt also falls on improper use of manure on farms, said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director of CSPI. It is highly risky to use manure when vegetables are grown under or on the soil, she said, but safe when something like tomatoes grows above the soil on a vine.
Partly because of prodding by the FDA, the industry has been working on plans for improving the safety of melons and of all kinds of lettuce and leafy greens. The plans contain recommendations for all stages of distribution from farm to fork - for example, delayed harvest of melons or extra washing are suggested after heavy rains, which increase chances of contamination. The plans also cover research into possible causes of contamination.
At least some of the 124 county jail prisoners who sued the county last week over bad taco meat should not have to worry about long-term health effects because they were not in jail the day the fateful meal was served.
The lawsuit, filed by Houston attorney Clement Aldridge Jr. on behalf of the current and former inmates, accuses the county and food contractor ABL Management of food mishandling that led to prisoners who ate tacos experiencing salmonella poisoning.
However, jail records show that several of the plaintiffs were not listed in prisoner manifests the day of the taco meal.
Sheriff Gean Leonard, whose agency oversees the jail, said the lawsuit "surprises me in one instance, in the sense that we apparently must have inmates in the jail who we have no idea are there."
Records of menus indicate that day was March 27, 2004 -- not four days earlier as stated in the lawsuit.
The prisoners in the suit claim they suffered salmonella infection, fevers and liver damage. The lawsuit also seeks redress for prisoners' "future mental anguish and emotional trauma, including fear of cancer."
Leonard said he hoped that fear was groundless "because, otherwise, a lot of us, particularly in this part of the country, are in trouble, including me."
The Salmonella blog supplements Marler Clark's Web site about Salmonella, a site that provides information about Salmonella, the symptoms and risks of infection, testing and the detection of salmonellosis, and how to prevent Salmonella outbreaks.
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