People are still contracting listeriosis‚ but situation in hand - experts

Fewer than five listeriosis cases per week have been reported for the last four weeks‚ the National Listeria Incident Management Team said in its latest outbreak situation report.

A total of 1‚053 confirmed cases have been reported from January 1 2017 to June 20 2018.

The experts said the number of reported cases per week has decreased since the implicated products were recalled on March 4 2018. However‚ a total of 78 cases have been reported since March 5.

The team said a strategy for listeriosis screening by district environmental health practitioners has been agreed on and became effective from June 25.

Approximately 190 food processingconfirmedfacilities that manufacture processed meat have been identified across the country.

“Incident Management Team members have been dispatched to various provinces to support the districts to conduct inspections and take environmental swabs‚” the experts said.

Government has identified the source of the outbreak as ready-to-eat processed meat products manufactured at the Enterprise Foods Polokwane production facility. Affected products were recalled from shop shelves.

This week’s update from the team of experts confirmed that inspections of all facilities that produce ready-to-eat processed meat products were under way.

Since June 18‚ more than 25 facilities have been inspected.

“An interim report on project activities is being finalised‚” according to the update statement. “A meeting of epidemiologists and laboratorians ... is being convened at the end of June to ascertain the trajectory of the outbreak and make recommendations regarding further actions.”

Read the Listeriosis outbreak situation report.