The peas apparently came from Kenya. But that wouldn’t fit the alliteration.

Eurosurveillance reports that in Norway, shigellosis is a mandatorily notifiable disease, and all isolates are submitted to the NIPH for verification and typing. Around 150 cases of shigellosis are confirmed per year, the majority caused by Shigella sonnei. Only around 10 to 20 of the shigellosis cases reported each year are acquired in Norway, usually as secondary cases caused by faecal-oral transmission in households.

An outbreak investigation was initiated on 27 May by interviewing the four confirmed cases using a trawling questionnaire. On the same day the NFSA inspectors visited the two households where suspected cases were reported and found an unopened package of sugar peas imported from Kenya in one household, and the packing of the same brand of sugar peas in the other. The sugar peas were bought in the same shop. Based on this suspicion, it was decided to focus the interviews on consumption of fresh vegetables and lettuce.

By 16 June, the reference laboratory has registered a total of 20 cases with the outbreak strain of Shigella sonnei, who had not travelled abroad prior to illness onset. The cases live in different municipalities, but mainly in the central and western parts of Norway. The date of onset for the first case was 10 May. All cases were adults except for one teenager, and 16 of them were women. All 20 cases reported to have eaten sugar peas, and there were no other obvious common exposures identified. The majority of the patients had bought the sugar peas in one of the large supermarket chains and only a few in another chain. The NFSA traced the suspected food product and found that all the implicated sugar peas were produced in Kenya. One sample from the unopened package of sugar peas collected in a patient household was positive for Shigella sonnei by both PCR methods, but could not be culture-confirmed.

As a response to our urgent inquiry Denmark reported an increase in the number of domestic Shigella sonnei infections in April and May 2009. They initiated an outbreak investigation to find out if the Danish cases were related to the outbreak in Norway. The investigation in Denmark also pointed at sugar peas as the source of the outbreak, and microbiological investigations (including MLVA typing) to compare the outbreak strains are ongoing.
 

A month after posting about it on barfblog, Health Canada has some new suggestions about reusing cloth grocery bags:

When using cloth bags, make sure to wash them frequently, especially after carrying fresh produce, meat, poultry or fish. Reusable grocery bags may not all be machine washable. If you are using this type of grocery bag, you should make sure to wash them by hand frequently with hot soapy water. Plastic bins should be washed using hot soapy water on a regular basis as well.

- Put your fresh or frozen raw meat, poultry and fish in separate bins or bags from fresh produce and other ready-to-eat foods.

- Putting your fresh or frozen raw meat, poultry or fish in plastic bags (the clear bags found in the produce and some meat sections work well) will help prevent the juices from leaking out and contaminating your reusable containers and other foods. Fresh produce should also always be put in plastic bags to protect them from contamination.

- If you are using your grocery bags or bins to store or transport non-food items, they should be thoroughly washed before using them for groceries.

There are some theoretical risks, but there isn't anything I can find in the peer-reviewed literature that suggests reusable cloth bags are any riskier or less risky than the standard one-use-only plastic or paper from a cross-contamination between-uses standpoint. It would be nice to have that data, as opposed to the plastic-industry assertions that there is a measurable bacterial load in 25 bags in Toronto (with no pathogens, or real good indicators). 

Comparisons to reusing hand towels don't work for me (one-use-only paper vs. cloth), where the towel is part of the potential pathogen removal process (and is usually quite moist). Reusable cloth bags might be a factor in sporadic cases of Campylobacter or other pathogens, but more data is needed to make that determination.  In cross-contamination there is a dilution effect when it comes to transfer. 1000 cfus of Campylobacter on the outside of the package of raw chicken might become 100 cfus when transfered to the bag, and then only 10 cfus when transferred to ready-to-eat apples. Drying out the bags (by turning them inside-out between uses) could reduce the bacterial loads enough to reduce risk. Maybe. The data just isn't there. Washing them frequently (as HC suggests) is a good idea, and won't increase risk, but I wonder how much it will actually decrease risk more than just letting them dry out.

The Associated Press reports that certain packages of Kowalke Organics alfalfa spouts are being recalled due to possible salmonella contamination.

The California Department of Public Health said the packages were mostly distributed at Gelson's and Whole Foods grocery stores in Southern California. According to Kowalke's owner, Mike Matthews, only one package purchased in a store as part of a "secret shopping" investigation by state agents tested positive for salmonella, and it had a sell-by date of June 21.

The health officials "looked at our paperwork and we're 100 percent clean. The test we have for that batch was negative," Matthews said. "Since we know it was clean when it left our truck, the only way that it could have happened was in cross-contamination down the line in the store."

Officials disagreed with that deduction—and solitary test result (which came from a sample on Kowalke's premises, according to Matthews, and not on the truck)—and recommended a recall of all of Kowalke’s sprouts with sell-by dates from June 18 to June 30. Public health spokesman Al Lundeen said most sprout contamination comes from seeds, so all the products that were grown from that seed lot should be recalled.

Cross-contamination at retail is certainly a possibility. I’d be more apt to believe it, though, if I knew more about the testing procedure, and perhaps found out that more than one sample was tested per batch. With the limited information Matthews has provided, I have to agree with the health officials’ recommendation to issue a broader recall.

If you’ve got a food safety plan in place, tell the public about it—all of it. The public can always handle more information about food safety, not less.
 

A 48-year-old teaching assistant from Crayford, and a family from Broadstairs are among more than 500 British tourists who won compensation for a nightmare Caribbean holiday at the Bahia Principe Hotel in the Dominican Republic (below, left) in 2007.

According to media accounts, the holiday companies continued sending guests to the hotel despite a major outbreak of Shigella and Salmonella which lasted for months.

"My husband couldn't reach the toilet when we were there. I went down to reception to tell them to call a doctor and they said put a nappy on him to take him to the medical centre. … Some people had to have new mattresses because they hadn't made it to the toilet in time. There were children screaming all over the place and pregnant women."

Tracey Chambers, 43, said,

“People were being sick in the swimming pool and the toilets were all blocked up. Lots of people were being sick. We were told to watch what we ate because there was bug going round. …  My dad had to be put on a drip because he was dehydrated and couldn’t take on enough water. They were charging 40 dollars for a trip to the hospital.”

Other guests were diagnosed with shigella, giardia, salmonella and E coli, thought to have come from food dressings.

A spokesperson for Thomas Cook said,

"We are pleased that the majority of legal cases have now been settled and we want to be able to reassure all our customers that we work with our hotel partners to continually monitor the hygiene standards in their properties."

A public health student at Kansas State passed along this story from 9NEWS.com about Urban Hens, a Boulder, Colorado-based group that is working with the Children, Youth and Environments Center for Research Design at CU and a private grant to supposedly help teach sustainability to children by placing chickens near neighborhood and school gardens.

Wynn Martens, the co-founder of Urban Hens, said,

"How can you be truly sustaining and that is by reusing the waste in any system and keeping it inside the system instead of continuing to consume and throw it off. People become interested for different reasons. Some people are concerned with the humane treatment of the chickens. Other people are interested in the nutritional value. Other people really are interested in the educational component, so we want to support all those."

The children go to the Blossom Pre-School across the alley from Shawnee Gardens. Their curriculum will include responsibilities such as feeding and partly taking care of the chickens. Many of their lunch and dinner scraps will go to the chickens. The chickens' waste meanwhile will help fertilize the Shawnee Gardens garden. That garden's products will be eaten by both parties as will the eggs the chickens lay.

Wow. I thought American maternity leave policies were sorta barbaric – six weeks versus a year in Canada – but to make pre-schoolers clean up chicken shit, compost it and then make them eat the food with chicken poop. Hey, maybe I got it wrong, but there is nothing mentioned about microbial food safety in this situation, no details in the story or on the websites as to what constitutes proper composting.

Food porn over food safety. It'll be a public health person who gets to clean up the mess.
 

Visitation at Federal Correctional Complex-Forrest City (FCC-FC), Arkansas, has temporarily been suspended, according to the Times-Herald, due to inmates sickened with a “suspected gastrointestinal virus.” R.D. Weeks, executive assistant at FCC-FC explains, “The institution’s medical staff is evaluating and appropriately treating the inmates for the symptoms that appear to dissipate after 48-72 hours.” Weeks continues, “Symptomatic inmates are being tested to determine the exact virus; however, the H1N1 virus is not suspected in these cases.” In addition to visitation limitations, staff and inmates are reminded to adhere to universal precautions, which include frequent handwashing.

Rapper T.I. (Clifford Harris) is serving his jail time at FCC-FC for purchasing illegal firearms and silencers in October 2007. It is unknown if T.I. has been infected with the virus.

The Mighty Howard County Fair in Cresco, IA, will provide handwashing stations around livestock. Fairgoers are asked to wash their hands before and after visiting the livestock areas. Livestock at the fair include: rabbits, goats, sheep, lamas, chickens, horses, dairy cattle, beef cattle, dogs and pigs. The fair will run from June 23-28.

Cucumbers should be used as vegetables, or even conversation starters like in this scene from the movie, Animal House (right).

But a Lee County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office report says that during a food giveaway at the Lehigh Christian Church, a 33-year-old woman was struck with a cucumber by another woman after an argument over which free food belonged to which woman.

The church asked both women to leave.

If you have kids, know kids, or consider yourself a kid, singing songs may help increase handwashing. For pre-schoolers, a handwashing song, performed by the Wiggles, to the tune of “Are you sleeping” may help. Although in their music video, the Wiggles use a bowl of water to clean their hands. When washing your hands it is better to use vigorously running water to ensure biological pathogens are scrubbed away. For kids over the age of 5, another song by the Health Promotion Board, Washy Washy Clean, to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it” may be more appropriate. I am happy and I know it when people of all ages wash their hands.