Quantcast
Published On: Sat, Aug 4th, 2012

UPDATE: Staph toxin the cause of the Denver Rescue Mission outbreak

In a follow-up to a story reported last month, Denver health officials say that the cause of the outbreak that hospitalized at least 60 at a Denver homeless shelter was Staphylococcus food poisoning.

Image/CDC

According to a report in the Denver Post Friday, as part of the investigation into the outbreak, lab results point to a toxin from Staphlococcus aureus bacteria as the cause of illness.

Initial reports suggest the food poisoning outbreak was caused by improperly heated and cooled turkey in addition to poor hygienic practices.

Staphylococcal food intoxication is caused by several of the enterotoxins of Staphylococcus aureus. These toxins are heat-stable and cannot be killed by cooking.

People typically get this usually abrupt food poisoning through eating a food stuff that contains the staphylococcal enterotoxin, especially foods that come in contact with food handler’s hands, either without subsequent cooking or inadequate heating or refrigeration.

Foods most commonly implicated are pastries, custards, salad dressings, sandwiches and meat products. When these foods remain at room temperature for a period (usually a several hours) prior to consumption, the staph bacteria are allowed to multiply and produce the toxin.

The time between eating the offending food product and the onset of symptoms is short, from 30 minutes to 8 hours.

This intoxication presents itself quickly with sometimes violent onset; severe cramps, nausea, vomiting and often accompanied by diarrhea. The illness typically lasts a day or two. Serious complications and deaths are rare.

In an outbreak setting like this, recovery of large amounts Staphylococcus aureus or detection of enterotoxin from the implicated food confirms the diagnosis.

Prevention of staphylococcal food poisoning requires:

  • Food handlers must be educated about strict food hygiene, temperature control, handwashing, and sanitation.
  • Also the dangers of working with exposed skin, nose or eye infections.
  • Those workers with boils, lesions, or abscesses must be temporarily excluded from food handling duties.
  • Reduction in food handling time, from initial preparation to service, to a minimum of 4 hours at room temperature. Also proper temperature control must be observed when storing food either hot or cold.

 

On the DISPATCH: Headlines  Local  Opinion

Subscribe to Weekly Newsletter

* indicates required
/ ( mm / dd ) [ALL INFO CONFIDENTIAL]

About the Author

- Writer, Co-Founder and Executive Editor of The Global Dispatch. Robert has been covering news in the areas of health, world news and politics for a variety of online news sources. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the website, Outbreak News Today and hosts the podcast, Outbreak News Interviews on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify Robert is politically Independent and a born again Christian Follow @bactiman63

Leave a comment

XHTML: You can use these html tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

like_us_on_facebook

 

The Global Dispatch Facebook page- click here

Movie News Facebook page - click here

Television News Facebook page - click here

Weird News Facebook page - click here 

DISPATCH RADIO

dispatch_radio

THE BRANDON JONES SHOW

brandon_jones_show-logo

Archives