According to a study from French researchers, salmonella reports from England, Wales, France, Denmark and the US have demonstrated a new strain of salmonella with a high resistance to antimicrobial treatment.
The salmonella strain is named S. Kentucky and has infected 489 patients between 2000 and 2008. The bug is resistant to multiple drugs, and originated in Egypt, moving over to parts of Africa and the Middle East. Your diet could be the reason your wellness is at risk to this bug, as 10% of the people infected hadn’t been abroad, which, according to the researchers, means that some infections may have also occurred in Europe through eating contaminated imported food or through secondary contaminations. The S. Kentucky salmonella was found in chickens and turkeys from Ethiopia, Morocco and Nigeria, and the study’s authors argue that extensive use of drugs to treat chickens and turkeys may have contributed to the rapid spread of the bug.
But how did it spread so far and so quickly? According to the study, weaknesses in infection monitoring around the world makes new strains of infections harder to track, as the Health Protection Agency notes that over 2500 different strains of salmonella have already been identified.
However, because it has spread so far and so rapidly, the salmonella has had time to learn resistance to strong salmonella treatments before a human picks up food poisoning from the infected food. The wellbeing of the elderly and people with weakened immune systems are the most at risk, as salmonella can be life threatening, but the majority of infections only cause mild gastroenteritis in healthy people. In the UK alone there were 9133 identified salmonella cases last year, which is just part of the1.6 million salmonella cases reported between 1999 and 2008 in 27 European countries.
Yet it can be avoided, as a Food Standards Agency spokesperson advised ‘Human salmonella infections are rarely treated with antibiotics. Cooking food thoroughly will destroy any bacteria irrespective of whether the organism is resistant to antibiotics or not. As part of the FSA strategy to reduce food borne illness we recommend people follow some basic food safety rules: wash hands properly and keep them clean, cook food thoroughly, chill foods properly and avoid cross-contamination. These principles, which are designed to reduce the risk from pathogens, such as salmonella, are equally applicable whether these pathogens are resistant to antimicrobials or not.’
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