E-alert 9 August: over 2000 cases so far in Salmonella Hadar outbreak in Spain associated with consumption of pre-cooked chicken, July-August, 2005

Abstract

E-alert 9 August: Over 2000 cases so far in Salmonella Hadar outbreak in Spain associated with consumption of pre-cooked chicken, July-August, 2005

Annick Lenglet1 (adanyelle@isciii.es), on behalf of the National Epidemiological Surveillance Network of Spain

1European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET) and Field Epidemiology Training Programme Spain (PEAC), Centro Nacional de Epidemiología, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain As of 8 August 2005, 2138 cases of salmonella gastroenteritis have been reported to the Centro Nacional de Epidemiología (National Centre for Epidemiology, CNE) in Spain. The reported cases have been epidemiologically and microbiologically linked to a single brand of pre-cooked, vacuum-packed roast chicken (brand A) which was commercially distributed throughout Spain.

On 28 July 2005, the Centro Nacional de Epidemiología (National Centre for Epidemiology, CNE) received a report from the autonomous region of Valencia of the detection of eight household clusters of gastroenteritis involving a total of 25 cases, all with clinical presentation of salmonella infection. On the same day, two more autonomous regions reported similar outbreaks and Agencia Española de Seguridad Alimentaria (Spanish Food Safety Agency, http://www.aesa.msc.es) started investigating the source. On 29 July, an alert was sent to the health authorities throughout Europe via the Early Warning and Response System (EWRS) and Enter-net (http://www.hpa.org.uk/hpa/inter/enter-net_menu.htm).