More than 350 sickened by multi-country Salmonella outbreak

Outbreak cases are in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK.

Nine of the confirmed cases have a travel history to Hungary or Poland.

Croatian involvement​

Croatia reported a cluster of S. Enteritidis cases, including the death of a five year old child, with an epidemiological link to the outbreak.

Biljana Borzan, Croatian member of the European Parliament (MEP) from the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, raised the issue in a written question to the EU Commission last month.

“The enforcement of EU food safety regulations is a matter for Member States and their appropriate bodies. The Salmonella incidents have, however, led to a debate on the question whether food safety in Croatia is being endangered by the free flow of goods on the single market.​

“Can a Member State impose stricter standards and checks than those provided for under the EU regulations in force? How far are Member States free to draw up national Salmonella control plans and what role does the Commission play as regards the substance and approval of such plans?” ​

The Commission must respond within six weeks.

Germany and Italy also reported an increase in S. Enteritidis.

The case count updates an outbreak assessment by European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in October which reported 112 confirmed and 148 probable S. enteritidis cases.

Another assessment will be published by ECDC and EFSA towards the end of January next year.

Confirmed and probable cases have increased steadily from May to September, said the ECDC.

Fermy Drobiu Woźniak action​

The outbreak peaked in October when the source of infection was identified at Fermy Drobiu Woźniak (Wozniak Poultry Farms), a large egg packaging centre, and control measures were implemented.

The firm said it has introduced ‘non-routine’ tests involving feed, breeding farms, packing facilities, transport and sale of eggs.

It also has auditing procedures at farms and quality control of products at all stages in cooperation with research centres and sanitary services.

Główny Inspektor Sanitarny, the Polish chief sanitary inspectorate, found eggs with code 3PL30101312 and best before 5-12-16 and 3PL08101301 with date 3-12-16 from Fermy Drobiu Woźniak to be contaminated with S. enteritidis.

The agency also said testing by Państwowej Inspekcji Sanitarnej found ‘Super jaja 10 sztuk’ with code on the egg of 3PL30101312 and date 10-12-16 to contain Salmonella.

Fermy Drobiu Woźniak said products have already been withdrawn and are not on shelves.

Eggs were distributed to Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Romania and UK but countries such as Hong Kong said they had also been affected.

The Bulgarian food safety authority said last month that nearly 500,000 eggs were returned to the Polish producer and almost 80,000 that had expired were destroyed.

The multi-country outbreak of S. Enteritidis phage type (PT) 8 has multiple locus variable-number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA) profiles 2-9-7-3-2 and 2-9-6-3-2.

Based on whole genome sequencing (WGS) isolates are part of two distinct but related genetic clusters.

ECDC and EFSA said contaminated products could have been distributed on multiple occasions between May 2015 and October 2016.

It is also possible the outbreak is associated with one or more sources persisting since at least 2012, added the agencies.