Canada experiences Salmonella Outbreak from Tainted Sprouts

Fifteen Queen’s University residents of Kingston developed salmonella poisoning this week after eating some bean sprouts. Now, there are over 200 people from Ontario who have been identified as suffering similar ills over the course of the last four fortnights.

Canada is quick to jump when these types of problems occur. Just last week their swift action eliminated nearly 60,000 fowl who were tested with a weak, non-bird infecting virus which could have been possibly linked to the oh-so-frightening “bird flu” and the entire farm is destroyed. Having his entire stock killed is not a first-time experience for this lucky farmer, this is the second entire head of fowl he has had “cleaned” from his farm.

But sprouts, I know they are healthy - but why do they always have dirt on them at the store? That, I don’t understand.

As a precautionary measure, shipments of all bean sprouts from the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors, representing approximately 25,000 stores across the country, habe been stoped from going to retailers in Ontario.

The story at The Globe and Mail continues…

Health officials were still trying yesterday to track down the source of the outbreak to one of eight Ontario bean sprout producers, but the process is very complex, said Justin Chenier, spokesman for the Kingston region’s public health unit.

“The seeds for the bean sprouts didn’t originate in Canada, but all indications point that it’s a local contamination.”

Salmonella belongs to a group of bacteria that normally live in the intestinal tracts of animals and birds, and are usually transmitted to people when they eat foods contaminated with animal feces. They most regularly appear in raw poultry and eggs.

While some stores in the Kingston area had stopped supplying bean sprouts this week, an expert on infectious diseases said he doesn’t see banning the vegetable as a solution.

“Salmonella is the second most common bacterial cause of infectious diarrhea in North America and particularly in Ontario,” said Andrew Seymour of Sunnybrook and Women’s College Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.”Bean sprouts are one source out of many. If you were to eliminate bean sprouts, the total impact on salmonella infection would probably be quite small,” Dr. Seymour said.But while statistics provided by the Public Health Agency of Canada show that salmonella poisoning is a fairly common occurrence with roughly 6,500 cases reported annually, Dr. Seymour said there has been a steady increase in cases involving bean and alfalfa sprouts in recent years across the continent.

“Bean sprouts are getting riskier,” he said, calling the sprouts’ seeds perfect “vehicles for salmonellosis.”

“The reason there is such a risk of them getting contaminated is that these seeds are often stored for prolonged periods of time in cool and dry conditions during which the salmonella can stay stable. When they actually sprout, the numbers of bacteria can increase three- or fourfold.”

Source: The Globe and Mail

Did anyone notice I tagged this “Virus Alerts“? Cute, huh?