Salmonella scare over, say safety chiefs

FOOD safety chiefs believe the salmonella scare that affected nine countries which were supplied with meats from an Irish plant may be over.

One more case of the disease was confirmed in recent days — a patient in Austria — but that individual was ill three weeks ago and there have been no new suspect cases reported since then.

The Austria case brings to 145 the number confirmed to have been affected by the outbreak of salmonella agona, a rare form of the familiar salmonella bug which was traced to the Dawn Farm Foods plant in Naas, Co Kildare.

England took the brunt of the outbreak with 83 cases, including that of an elderly woman who became ill while under treatment in hospital for an unconnected condition and subsequently died.

There were 34 cases in Scotland, 11 in Ireland, ten in Wales, two each in Northern Ireland and Sweden and one each in Finland, France and Austria.

Alan Reilly, deputy chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, said he was hopeful that the outbreak was over. “The last confirmed case was originally notified on August 7th so we are certainly looking at the petering out of the outbreak if not the end of it,” he said.

However, the Health Protection Surveillance Centre said samples from other individuals who also became ill with salmonella in recent times were being tested in their home countries to see if the agona strain might have been responsible.

Dawn Farm Foods is not back to full production either. More than 50 batches of catering and wholesale products containing meat ingredients were recalled from supermarkets and food outlets and the plant, which employs 500 workers, was ordered to shut one of its production lines.