Welcome to the Microbiology Information

Did you know that money can be a source of micro-organisms. Although low, the cross-transmission of micro-organisms to foods can occur through food handlers.

A group of researchers in Ballarat , Australia screen 400 coins and 350 notes for the presence of bacteria. The money was sourced locations where staffs are likely to handle money. This included small food outlets such as corner shops, cafes and bakeries.

From the findings and as expected, the most common bacterium isolated was Staphylococcus aureus; a micro-organism commonly present on the skin and nasal passages of a third of the human population.

Pathogens were also isolated with E.coli dominating a high proportion of the coins. Only 2 coins had salmonella.

Although the majority of the money contained micro-organisms, the levels were very to cause direct infections.

The biggest risk is the cross contamination of low levels of micro-organisms to foods that support the growth. This is the reason why food handlers must wash their hands properly and regularly or glove wearers to changes gloves frequently.

It looks like the giant US company 3M has just taken over the British Biomedical firm “Acolyte Biomedica” which makes microbial detection technology.

According to sources at 3M, the acquisition will help its expansion into the market for infection prevention diagnostics.

One of the firm’s major products is a rapid test system that helps hospitals screen for Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), a type of bacteria that is resistant to many antibiotics and occurs most frequently in hospital patients who have weakened immune systems.

The system lets physicians screen for MRSA or other types of resistant bacteria and get confirmed negatives in hours instead of days. This acquisition adds to the purchase of Biotrace in 2006 has a similar type of technology. Interestingly Biotrace also recently took over the popular Australian Biotechnology company, TECRA. TECRA is one of the world leaders in rapid tests kits for pathogen testing the food industry.

Here’s what they write in the press release:

“Early detection of dangerous microbes is becoming more important as multiple resistant bacteria strains become more prevalent. Acolyte Biomedica helps hospitals control high-risk infections through improved screening and targeted treatment of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a type of bacteria that is resistant to certain antibiotics and occurs most frequently in hospital patients who have weakened immune systems.

Complementary acquisitions such as this support both 3M’s core business and growth strategy to expand into adjacent markets. 3M’s long-standing infection prevention platform offers innovative solutions to help reduce the risk of healthcare-associated infections. 3M’s infection prevention portfolio includes diagnostic testing, sterilization assurance, skin preparation, sterile field and surface, wound management and environmental cleaning.”

According to the New York Daily News, a mother has filed a lawsuit against Taco Bell saying her teenage son was severely sickened by E. coli bacteria and hospitalized three months ago after eating food from the restaurant.

The lawsuit was filed in the Manhattan Supreme Court. Edwina Mooney brought the food home from the Taco Bell in Hempstead on 18th November 2006.

She claims her son James Robinson, 16, was the only family member to get sick.

Mooney’s lawyer Eric Richman said yesterday that James fell ill about four or five days after eating the Mexican meal from Taco Bell. He said the youth was hospitalized with symptoms such as severe abdominal pain, dehydration and stomach flu.

Richman said an official of the Nassau County Department of Health, Steven Jacob, “called my client after he was released from the hospital and told him he had food poisoning caused by E. coli.”

There was no answer yesterday at Jacob’s number at the county health agency. Mooney’s lawsuit seeks unspecified money damages for her son’s injuries.

Richman said the Hempstead restaurant was one of the Taco Bells that closed after an E. coli outbreak caused scores of cases of food poisoning in several states, including New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. It has reopened.

Taco Bell spokesman Rob Poetsch said he was not aware of Mooney’s lawsuit and could not comment. But he added, “The health and safety of our customers is our number one priority.”

Poetsch said he had not heard of a definite cause of the outbreak since officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in December the most common factor seemed to be contaminated lettuce.

E. coli, or Escherichia coli, is a common and ordinarily harmless bacterium found in the guts of cattle and other animals. Some strains of the bacterium, however, can cause abdominal cramps, fever, bloody diarrhea, kidney failure, blindness, paralysis and even death in rare cases.

Other E. coli lawsuits have been filed against Taco Bell.

Attorneys for an 11 year old boy who became sick after eating at a Taco Bell in Riverhead filed negligence suit against the restaurant chain in early December 2006.

A Pennsylvania man who became ill with an E. coli infection after eating food from a Taco Bell restaurant sued the fast-food chain’s owner and a California scallion grower.

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New Zealand Dairy Giant, FONTERRA says a salmonella outbreak at its Cobden plant in Australia has been resolved without affecting any of its milk powder products.

The Cobden factory was closed for four days at the end of January after the pathogen was detected in an “environment sample” during routine monitoring. Both the manufacturer and the local Dairy Authority (Dairy Food Safety Victoria) has been working closely to rectify the problem.

Due to intensive testing, none of the company’s products were affected by the outbreak and milk destined for Cobden was likely to have been distributed to its Dennington plant.

Further information was not available last night. United Dairy Farmers of Victoria president Doug Chant said he had not been notified of any problem in Cobden.

“I’m certainly unaware of it,” Mr Chant said. “It probably doesn’t really have to be brought to our attention.”It’s an issue for the factory and I’m quite sure they’ll be dealing with it adequately.”

He said salmonella outbreaks were fairly uncommon in the dairy industry. “The practices of our factories are world class. We have very, very few problems as a rule and whatever the cause I imagine it was fairly isolated.” Mr Chant said the fact Fonterra had detected the pathogen in the environment rather than in the product demonstrated the company is being proactive in its approach to eliminate the source of the problem before it is escalated further.

According to AM New York, the Japanese authorities in Tokyo has confirmed the country’s fourth outbreak of the virulent H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus at a poultry farm in Southern Japan.

About two dozen chickens were found dead at the farm in Shintomi, southwestern Miyazaki state, last month. The birds had been infected with the H5N1 strain deadly to humans, the Agricultural Ministry said.

The case marks Japan’s fourth H5N1 outbreak incident this year and the third to hit poultry farms in Miyazaki, Japan’s largest chicken-producing region.

Officials began slaughtering the approximately 93,000 chickens at the Shintomi farm earlier this week.

The farm also has been quarantined, and chicken ranchers within a six-mile radius are banned from transporting poultry or eggs out of the area while officials check that the infection has not spread.

The H5N1 virus has killed or prompted the slaughter of millions of birds across Asia since late 2003, and caused the deaths of at least 164 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

Japan has confirmed only one human H5N1 infection and no human deaths.

Bird flu remains hard for humans to catch, but international experts fear it may mutate into a form that could spread easily between humans and potentially kill millions around the world.

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According to Reuters and due to the confirmed testing of Bird Flu in Turkey recently, Britain will gas thousands of turkeys from a farm in eastern England.

The discovery of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian flu on a farm run by Europe’s largest turkey producer surprised experts and raised questions about how the virus had been introduced into a sealed shed.

However, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) expressed optimism on Sunday that the virus had been confined to the Bernard Matthews farm near Lowestoft in the county of Suffolk.

A man in a protective suit passes turkey sheds on bird flu affected poultry farm at Holton in eastern England February 3, 2007. Britain gassed tens of thousands of turkeys and extended restrictions on the movement of poultry on Sunday to try to prevent the spread of deadly bird flu from a farm in eastern England.

“Obviously, though, we need to be very vigilant in the coming days,” a spokeswoman said.

The slaughter of 159,000 birds at the farm, which started late on Saturday, was expected to take another two days. The dead birds were being transported from the farm in sealed trucks to be incinerated.

About 2,500 turkeys died in the initial outbreak of the virus, which appears to have been confined to one of 22 sheds at the farm.

Restrictions on the movement of poultry were extended overnight to a 2,000-sq-km area around the farm.

Defra said the virus was the same pathogenic Asian strain found last month in Hungary where an outbreak among geese on a farm prompted the slaughter of thousands of birds.

That outbreak followed a relative lull in cases of H5N1 among European poultry since hundreds of turkeys died at a farm in eastern France about a year ago.

The strain tends to be transmitted to poultry by infected migrating wildfowl.

It has killed at least 165 people worldwide since 2003, most of them in Asia, and more than 200 million birds have died from it, or been killed to prevent its spread.

However, it has not yet fulfilled scientists’ worst fears by mutating into a form that could be easily transmitted between humans and possibly cause a global pandemic.

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