The recent South African Listeriosis outbreak is considered the largest one in the world, ever, summing up to about 1000 confirmed cases and almost 200 deaths. The South African health minister Aaron Motsoaledi confirmed the origin of the epidemic. However, a dangerous trending is followed by some listeria skeptics and could be life-threatening.
Infested sausages and processed meat caused the South African Listeriosis outbreak
At least 16 samples of food products produced by Enterprise and Rainbow Chicken Limited (RCL) were positive for the ST6 Listeria strain and preliminary results show that other ready-to-use products from the same manufacturers contain the bacterium.
The South African National Consumer Commission has instructed the company to urgently recall all the products.
The outbreak has emerged in January
The outbreak has emerged on January 12th, when 9 children under the age of 5 were taken to the Baragana Hospital with gastroenteritis and fever. The pediatrician suspected the presence of a disease transmitted through food, including listeriosis.
The medical staff has alerted the Environmental Health Practitioners representatives who obtained samples from two independent brands, Enterprise and RCL, submitted them to laboratory tests.
“Listeria monocytogenes was isolated from the feces collected from one of the sick children and in both samples collected from the two companies”, emerged from the analysis.
Listeria skeptics may put the others lives in danger
A woman who is apparently a Listeria skeptic posted a video on her social media page in which is mocking the Listeriosis outbreak.
“Will we be killed by polony‚ something we have been eating for ages. I am going to eat it and I want to see if I will die. I want you to be witnesses. Why are they not showing us the bodies (of people killed by the disease)? I want to see those bodies lying next to the polony victims. Don’t take us for fools‚” said the woman.
Right after the woman’s video emerged, Popo Maja, the Head Of Communications and Stakeholder Management at the National Department of Health, replied that such listeria skeptics are putting the others lives in danger in South Africans by ridiculizing a very serious situation, which is the Listeriosis outbreak. He added that there might be people who would trust the woman and will start eating processed meat, thus, putting their lives in danger.
