…Your Voice for Safe Food

Salmonella, E. coli and listeria are food borne bacteria that are known to cause numerous illnesses. A team of researchers from University of Minnesota has uncovered a naturally occurring lantibiotic that is a kind of peptide produced by harmless bacteria. The latter can be supposedly combined with foodstuffs to kill negative bacteria like Salmonella, E. coli and so on.

This lantibiotic is a natural preservative that is known to kill gram-negative bacteria, specifically the hazardous types. This peptide is touted to be used in meats, processed cheese, egg, dairy products, canned foods, seafood, salad dressing, fermented beverages and many more to prohibit infectious organisms. The advantages of the aforesaid preservative are not limited to safety alone. It is seemingly easy to digest, non-toxic, non-allergic and the bad bacteria may not find it simple to oppose the function of lantibiotic.

“It’s aimed at protecting foods from a broad range of bugs that cause disease. Of the natural preservatives, it has a broader umbrella of bugs that it can protect against,” commented Dan O’Sullivan, a professor of food science and nutrition in the university’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences.

The recent dangerous salmonella outbreak calls for such preservatives with shielding effects. According to Shaun Kennedy, director of the National Center for Food Protection and Defense, salmonella seems to play a major role in food-borne illnesses. Last fall witnessed the deadly epidemic of eggs infected with the latter. This was apparently the greatest food contamination in 2010.

Salmonella and E. coli are gram-negative bacteria, which cause more than half of all health issues arriving from food in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, disclose that salmonella is related to nearly 28 percent of above 3,000 deaths caused due to food contamination annually.

This article taken from: http://www.healthjockey.com/2011/08/08/lantibiotics-kill-food-borne-bacteria-reveals-minnosota-research/

By Helen Briggs

A strain of Salmonella resistant to the most powerful antibiotics has been found in the UK, France and Denmark.

The outbreak emerged in Africa then spread to Europe, picking up antibiotic resistance along the way, says a team of international researchers.

They are calling on health officials to step up monitoring to stop the "superbug" spreading globally.

Cases have grown from a handful in 2002 to 500 worldwide in 2008, they report in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Co-researcher Dr Simon Le Hello of Institut Pasteur in Paris, France, said: "We hope that this publication might stir awareness among national and international health, food, and agricultural authorities so that they take the necessary measures to control and stop the dissemination of this strain before it spreads globally, as did another multidrug-resistant strain of Salmonella, Typhimurium DT104, starting in the 1990s."

Most of the millions of Salmonella infections a year are not serious, causing only mild stomach upsets. Occasionally, however, particularly in the elderly or in people with weakened immune systems, they can be life-threatening and may need treatment with antibiotics.

We recommend people follow some basic food safety rules: wash hands properly and keep them clean, cook food thoroughly, chill foods properly and avoid cross-contamination”

The strain, known as S. Kentucky, has developed resistance to the antibiotic Ciprofloxacin, often used for treating severe Salmonella cases.

French researchers started monitoring the strain after noticing a handful of cases in travellers returning from Egypt, Kenya and Tanzania.

Data from other countries suggests S. Kentucky arose in poultry in Egypt in the 1990s, and then spread to farm animals in various parts of Africa and the Middle East.

Although the first infections outside Africa seem to be in international travellers, more recent cases seem to have been acquired in Europe, perhaps through contaminated food, say the researchers. Cases have been seen in England, Wales, Denmark and France.

Hygiene care
The Health Protection Agency said there had been 698 cases of S. Kentucky from 2000 to 2008, 0.6% of all Salmonella cases reported in England and Wales .

Just 244 of the cases had resistance to ciprofloxacin.

Altogether, there are around 13,000 cases of Salmonella each year. Infections are only treated with antibiotics when they become invasive, and there are a number of drugs which can be used.

A spokesman said: "The number of cases we have been seeing in England and Wales has shown some increase but remained fairly stable over the latter part of the study.

"Care should be taken with hand and food hygiene particularly while travelling as over 50% of S.Kentucky cases reported in England and Wales are known to be travel-related."

A spokesperson from the UK's Food Standard's Agency (FSA) said human Salmonella infections are rarely treated with antibiotics, and cooking food thoroughly will destroy any bacteria irrespective of whether the organism is resistant to antibiotics or not.

He added: "As part of the FSA strategy to reduce foodborne illness we recommend people follow some basic food safety rules: wash hands properly and keep them clean, cook food thoroughly, chill foods properly and avoid cross-contamination.

"These principles, which are designed to reduce the risk from pathogens, such as Salmonella, are equally applicable whether these pathogens are resistant to antimicrobials or not."

This article taken from: http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14386654&ct=ga&cad=CAcQARgAIAAoATAAOABA77Dm8QRIAVAAWABiBWVuLVVT&cd=bngnWZdyRwM&usg=AFQjCNHIygmCTicGzfgWRLsmBQ91l8CweA

By Gretchen Goetz

Of the approximately 1,000 children who suffer from E. coli O157:H7 infections each year, 15 to 20 percent develop the life-threatening kidney disease HUS -- hemolytic uremic syndrome. But an important new study indicates that patients who receive fluids intravenously early in the course of the illness are less likely to develop this serious complication.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSL) medical center analyzed the cases of 50 patients under the age of 18 who were treated for HUS at 12 pediatric hospitals in the U.S. and Scotland. They found that 68 percent became unable to urinate, a catastrophic step in the disease's progression.

However, of the 25 patients who received no IV fluids within 4 days of getting sick, 84 percent stopped urinating. Of the other 25 patients who did get IV fluids right away, only 52 percent stopped urinating. Other factors did not seem to make a difference.

"If kids were given any IV fluids in the first 4 days of illness, they were more likely to continue peeing and have decreased complications. They were less likely to need to go on dialysis. Their hospitalization courses were shorter. They just did better," said Christina Hickey, a third year resident at WUSL Children's Hospital and lead author of the study.

HUS develops when the harmful Shiga toxins produced by E. coli O157:H7 bacteria destroy the tissue of small blood vessels, which clog and damage red blood cells that cannot squeeze through the obstructed passages. The kidney, which needs adequate bloodflow to filter out waste, becomes compromised and the patient can no longer secrete urine.

HUS is the most common cause of acute kidney failure in infants and young children, and more than half the children with HUS require dialysis. But as the recent E. coli outbreak in Europe has demonstrated, adults infected by pathogenic E. coli are also susceptible to HUS.

Hickey says the increased blood flow provided by sodium-containing, intravenous fluid, which expands blood vessels, could decrease the odds for oliguria, or low urine output. Oral fluids aren't effective, because E. coli patients are experiencing such profuse bouts of diarrhea, and may also be vomiting, that they can't remain hydrated on their own.

In a story by the Washington University in St. Louis Newsroom, Hickey explained: "HUS is like a heart attack to the kidneys. What we're trying to do is make sure the kidneys get enough blood flow. By giving intravenous fluids, we try to keep those kidneys working and to keep these children urinating. We think this will have a substantial impact on reducing the severity of kidney failure in these kids."

The study showed that the ability of the young patients' kidneys to fend off the negative effects of the disease directly correlated to the amount of IV fluids the children had received.

Preventing the development of HUS is crucial in the course of an E. coli infection, because there is no way to treat the kidney disease once it occurs, and no way to lessen the severity of kidney injury it causes. According to the study, administering IV fluids immediately after the onset of bloody diarrhea, a common symptom of an E. coli O157:H7 infection, could reduce a child's chances of developing an illness that becomes a wait-and-see game once it has taken hold.

Hickey says children with bloody diarrhea should be examined immediately by a health-care provider. There is a narrow window of opportunity in which IV fluids must be administered before it's too late.

"If a child is identified early as having an E. coli O157:H7 infection, we think that intravenous fluids can help protect the kidney and possibly help that child avoid dialysis," says Hickey. "The important thing is for providers to identify the kids at risk for E. coli O157:H7 infection early," says Hickey.

The study authors point out that early diagnosis is sometimes difficult because doctors must wait for the results of microbiological tests of stool specimens to confirm whether a patient has E. coli. More rapid testing is needed, the authors note, in order to avoid this delay.

They also urge doctors to recognize the signs of an E. coli infection and take swift measures to diagnose a patient.

"We considered the possibility that providers hesitated to give fluids to children who were on the verge of developing HUS," the study says. "However, half or fewer of the children in this cohort underwent any testing, received any intravenous fluids, or were admitted to any hospital in the first 4 days of illness, well before HUS is diagnosed. Such inaction does not reflect major provider concerns about impending renal failure at the initial encounter."

This research builds on the findings of a previous study, which also showed that administering IV fluids can curb the downward spiral leading to kidney failure in E. coli O157:H7 infected patients. However, that study was confined to 29 patients under the age of 10 in Seattle, while this one examined children of all ages in hospitals in St. Louis; Seattle; Sacramento; Albuquerque; Little Rock; Milwaukee; Cincinnati; Indianapolis; Memphis; Columbus, Ohio; and Glasgow, Scotland.

Given the findings of this research, the authors note with dismay that giving IV fluids to E. coli patients is not already standard procedure.

"It is concerning that 14 of the 39 subjects who were evaluated during the first 4 days of illness received no intravenous fluids, and of those who did, few received the volume or sodium content we have recommended," the study says. "Opportunities to provide volume expansion in that critical interval appear, therefore, to have been lost."

The team's findings were released last week, as doctors in Europe continued to treat patients of the recent outbreak of E. coli O104:H4 there, where as many as 900 of the almost 4,000 outbreak victims developed HUS.

This study was released ahead of its scheduled publication time in hopes that it might provide guidance to the European community. That epidemic was caused by a different strain of E. coli than the one examined in this paper, but has similar effects.

"Because of the important public health implications of this study, we have decided to publish this article quickly online ahead of print," says a note from the editor.

Hickey's St. Louis collaborators were Dr. Robert J. Rothbaum, the Centennial Professor of Pediatrics, and Dr. Anne M. Beck, associate professor of pediatrics, both at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Phillip I. Tarr, the Melvin E. Carnahan Professor of Pediatrics and director of the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, supervised Hickey on the study and is senior author of the paper.

This article taken from: http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/07/iv-fluids-could-head-off-hus-in-children/

By David Milliken

(Reuters) - Germany's federal disease control institute declared on Tuesday that an E. coli outbreak which killed more than 50 people is now over and no cases have been reported in the past three weeks.

More than 4,400 people in Europe and North America were infected in two outbreaks of E. coli infection -- A large one centered in northern Germany and a smaller cluster focused around the French city of Bordeaux.

The outbreaks prompted Russia to ban imports of fresh fruit and vegetables from the European Union, and also caused western European consumers to shy away from fresh produce.

"The biggest E. coli outbreak in Germany is now over," said Reinhard Burger, president of the Robert Koch Institute, Germany's national disease control agency.

The agency said it was shutting down its operations center for monitoring the outbreak, but that it would continue with intensified surveillance in case the pathogen resurfaced.

Fenugreek seeds imported from Egypt are believed to have been the likeliest source of the outbreak.

This article taken from: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/26/us-germany-ecoli-idUSTRE76P42B20110726