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Beware Drug Resistant Shigella
Workers in the food service industry need to undergo Food Handling and Safety training inorder to learn the techniques to preparing and serving food in a manner that is hygienic andsafe for customers. We often hear of restaurants that receive fines or get their names listed onthe name and shame registers for hygiene breaches and no one wants their eatery in the sameposition, or an even worse one if customers are made ill because of eating contaminated food.
There are various bacteria that can contaminate food and subsequently sicken anyone whoconsumes it. While most foodborne illnesses pass after a week or two a recent Shigellaoutbreak in California demonstrates how risky foodborne bacteria can be.
In May 2012 a Shigella outbreak erupted in LA. The outbreak was traced back to a privatebridge club in LA country and was the first outbreak lined to a drug resistant strain of Shigella.
The bacteria have been found to have a decreased susceptibility to an antibiotic used to fightthe bacteria by the name of Azithromycin. The antibiotic is usually the most effective means offighting the Shigella.
According to a post on Foodsafetynews.com.au, the U.S Centres for Disease Control andPrevention last week reported that cases of shigellosis had been reported that were noteffectively treated with azithromycin.
Read what the article on Foodsafetynews.com said about the resistant strain outbreak: susceptibility to azithromycin have appeared sporadically in the U.S., but this was thefirst documented outbreak. Outbreak samples submitted to the CDC also showedresistance to streptomycin, sulfisoxazole, tetracycline andtrimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. Patients were found to have visited or worked at the bridge club between May 22 and26, 2012, with ages ranging from 54 to 98 years old. County health investigators ultimately found 39 shigellosis cases among visitors, alongwith two workers who experienced symptoms such as diarrhea, and an additional twoinfected workers who did not show symptoms. Thirty-one sought medical care and 10 Investigators did not find a specific outbreak source. PulseNet, a nationwideepidemiology network, identified two additional Shigella isolates geneticallyindistinguishable from the outbreak strain: one from a Pennsylvania man who visitedL.A. in April, and another from a Hawaii man who visited L.A. during April and May.
Neither of these patients had a connection to the bridge club. If bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to medication, prevention is even more of animportant issue and staff of restaurants needs to be aware of the dangers that contaminatedfood holds.
How Shigella bacteria (or any foodborne bacterium) spread can be minimised, is probably themost important question that food handlers need to ask themselves? Frequent and careful hand washing with soap is probably the most important step in preventingthe spread of Shigella. Hand washing among children should be frequent and supervised by anadult in day-care centres and homes with children who have not been fully toilet trained.
Basic food safety precautions and disinfection of drinking water prevents shigellosis from foodand water. However, people with shigellosis should not prepare food or drinks for others untilthey have been shown to no longer be carrying the Shigella bacterium, or if they have had nodiarrhoea for at least 2 days. At swimming beaches, having enough bathrooms and handwashing stations with soap near the swimming area helps keep the water from becomingcontaminated. Day-care centres should not provide water play areas.
Simple precautions taken while traveling to the developing world can prevent shigellosis. Drinkonly treated or boiled water and eat only cooked hot foods or fruits you peel yourself as muchas possible especially when travelling.

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