Food Safety News

Food Safety – Salmonella Infection – Salmonellosis is just one of the many bacterias that can seriously damage your health – or even kill you.

What is salmonella?

The salmonella group of bacteria can live in the intestines of both humans and animals. The mostcommon form of salmonella infection is food poisoning, although organisms from this group can also cause typhoid fever. The number of reported incidents of salmonella food poisoning increased substantially during the 1980s, due in part to the spread of factory farming.

What causes salmonella infection?

The bacteria are present in many types of animal products, but the most publicised outbreaks in recent years have been caused by infected poultry and eggs. Animals with the bacteria in their bodies often show no signs of sickness. If foods made from the carcasses of these animals are fed to farm stock such as chickens, they then transmit the bacteria.

In the case of infected eggs, the bacteria may be in the hen’s ovaries or transferred by the hen’s faeces to the eggshells. In crowded conditions, infection can spread rapidly, and the use of antibiotics to control disease may actually result in the production of resistant strains of these bacteria. Infection may also be spread during the transport of animals, when stress can lead to increased excretion of contaminated faeces. Large-scale food factories and mass catering in canteens and institutions such as hospitals mean that any lapse in hygiene can have serious and widespread consequences.

How is salmonella infection diagnosed and treated?

The onset of the illness usually occurs between 12 and 24 hours after eating contaminated food. The symptoms vary according to the severity of the attack, which in turn depends on the number of bacteria present in the affected product. The patient may suffer diarrhoea, headaches, aching limbs, vomiting, abdominal pain, shivering, and fever. The recommended course of action is to stay at home, rest, eat no food for 24 hours, and drink plenty of liquids to replace the fluids lost by diarrhoea and vomiting.

If you want to know more about food safety in the home, read our Food Safety News feeds regularly, and follow the link at the bottom of the page to our food safety section.

You may be interested in the other news pages:
Barbecue News
Beer News
Bread Making
Breakfast News
Cake News
Cheese News
Chocolate News
Coffee News
Crockpot News
Baking News

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