Public Health Wales and Torfaen County Borough Council with the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency are investigating an outbreak of cryptosporidium associated with a farm in Cwmbran.

Four people who have worked at Greenmeadow Community Farm have tested positive for cryptosporidium, and a further 13 possible cases in staff and volunteers are under investigation.

The one adult and three teenagers who have tested positive had all bottle fed lambs and kid goats that had diarrhoea.

There have been no reported cases of illness among members of the general public who visited the farm.

Dr Lika Nehaul, Consultant in Communicable Disease Control for Public Health Wales, said:

“The farm director instigated and has fully co-operated with our investigations. Handwashing after coming into contact with farm animals is of the utmost importance in preventing infection with cryptosporidium. There is no reason for anyone to avoid visiting petting farms as long as they ensure that anyone who has touched animals thoroughly washes their hands with hot water and soap immediately afterwards.”

Fesikh, an Egyptian dish that made buzzfeed’s 10 Foods That Make You Sick list, is apparently grey mullet that are caught, left out to putrefy, then salted and left to pickle for several months. The fish is a delicacy served during the annual celebration of Sham Al-Nessim, and causes a few people to die every year of botulism poisoning.

Lotus Catering and Fine Foods of Toronto has been fingered as the supplier of whole fesikh mullet (salted and cured fish) that has led to three cases of botulism.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) says the whole fesikh mullet was sold in clear vacuum-packaged bags of varying count and weight, bearing no code or date information.

This product was sold from Lotus Catering and Fine Food, 1960 Lawrence Ave. E, Toronto, ON, on or before April 17, 2012.

One in five supermarket chickens is contaminated with campylobacter, according to an investigation - spurring claims of "scaremongering" by a retail consortium.

The study involved poultry bought from nine of the UK's major supermarkets by the Which? consumer group.

As well as 18% of the samples containing campylobacter, 17% of them were contaminated with listeria, with salmonella present in 1.5% of the 192 chickens tested.

Whole chickens and chicken portions - standard, free range and organic, and all reared in the UK - were tested.

Sky News contacted all nine of the supermarkets tested in the survey. Most of them referred us to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

The BRC's food director Andrew Opie said: "Which? is scaremongering. Campylobacter is completely killed by normal cooking so providing people prepare chicken properly and follow sensible hygiene practices they're at no risk."

There’s always a risk; especially with cross-contamination in home and food service kitchens.

In 2009, the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) found (in a similar but not directly comparable test) that 65% of chickens were contaminated with campylobacter at the point of sale.

FSA said that tackling campylobacter was a “key issue” but warned that, despite the reduction in contamination, seasonal variations made it difficult to assess the merits of the decline.

Campylobacter was responsible for over 371,000 cases of food poisoning, including 88 deaths in the UK in 20009.

Which? executive director Richard Lloyd said: "We want to see the risk of contamination minimised at every stage of production, because for far too long consumers have been expected to clean up mistakes made earlier in the supply chain."

British Poultry Council chief executive Peter Bradnock said: "This report makes it clear that chicken is a safe and healthy product when properly cooked. These welcome findings show a big reduction in campylobacter presence on chicken, demonstrating the effectiveness of the biosecurity measures being taken by producers and processors against this naturally occurring bacteria."

Lidl issued a separate statement to Sky News saying: "All farms used to produce our fresh poultry range are members of the Assured Food Standards scheme for poultry, commonly known as the Red Tractor scheme, and are subject to independent third-party audits.

So what.

And journos repeated bad UK food safety advice to cook chicken until the juices runs clear: color is a terrible indicator of food safety in eat. Use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer and stick it in.

The Australian Food Network reports a notable rise in the number of cases of Cryptosporidium in the Northern Territory has prompted the state government to urge Territorians to practice good hygiene and food safety practices.

According to the Northern Territory Government, 114 cases have been reported so far this year.

Director of the Centre for Disease Control, Dr Vicki Krause, said this is more than twice the number of expected gastroenteritis cases this year caused by the Cryptosporidium parasite.

Dr Krause said, “The current hot and humid weather is providing the perfect conditions for the bug to thrive and we are expecting to see more cases.

“It’s important that infected people don’t prepare or handle food or drinks that will be consumed by others,” she said.