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Published Date: 2013-05-18 10:39:51
Subject: PRO/AH/EDR> Salmonellosis - Australia: (AC) restaurant
Archive Number: 20130518.1717221

SALMONELLOSIS - AUSTRALIA: (AUSTRALIAN CAPITOL TERRITORY), RESTAURANT
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Date: Wed 15 May 2013
Source: Canberra Times [edited]
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/hospitals-battle-to-cope-with-poisoning-20130515-2jlu2.html


The number of suspected salmonella cases has reached 100 in the largest outbreak of its kind ever seen in the ACT (Australian Capital Territory). It forced the Canberra and Calvary hospitals to activate their emergency response protocols on Tuesday [14 May 2013] evening, but by Wednesday afternoon, 15 May 2013, that had been cancelled as the number of people presenting at the emergency departments finally began falling.

15 people had been hospitalised by Wed 15 May 2013 evening, with many more having been observed in emergency departments. The outbreak was confined to people who ate at the newly opened Copa Brazilian Churrasco in Dickson on Saturday and Sunday, 11-12 May 2013.

"We're really struggling ... to find someone that wasn't sick; almost everyone who ate at the restaurant did get sick, which is unusual," ACT chief health officer Paul Kelly said. "Not only have people been quite severely ill, they've been ill quite quickly, more quickly than we would normally experience from a salmonella outbreak."

Environmental health and communicable disease teams continued to work with the chefs and proprietor of the buffet-style restaurant on Wednesday [15 May 2013], trying to pin down the source of the bacterial outbreak, which Dr Kelly said appears to have affected people in large doses.

"When we normally do these type of outbreak investigations, it becomes clear fairly early on that it's a particular food that's the problem, and we can deal with that. This is a bit more complex because there's a whole range of meats and salads and sauces, and it seems almost everyone ate everything," he said.

"We're working very closely with the restaurant to look at their processes and see exactly what they've been doing, how they've prepared their food. Is it a cross-contamination issue, for example? Is it use of eggs? These are the sort of things we've seen in previous outbreaks."

--
Communicated by:
Robin Hide
<robin.hide@anu.edu.au>

[ProMED thanks Robin Hide for this report regarding this ongoing, relatively large restaurant-related outbreak of salmonellosis. The serotype has not been reported. - Mod.LL

A HealthMap/ProMED-mail map can be accessed at: http://healthmap.org/r/1z_*.]

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