Outbreaks and Alerts: May 25, 2010

A daily digest of international outbreaks, alerts and food safety news

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United States

• Baton Rouge, LA. May 24: Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals to reopen oyster harvesting Area 28 to give harvesters as much time as possible to harvest their product before any potential impact from the BP oil spill in the Gulf.
• Minnesota. May 25: Minnesota Department of Health releases annual report of drinking water. Regular monitoring reveals little evidence of contamination problems in the state's 964 community water supply systems

Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands

• Nairobi, Kenya. May 24: Five people, including one child, have died from a suspected dysentery outbreak in East Pokot District in the past three days. At least a dozen more required hospital treatment; an unknown number of people are receiving care at home.
• Hong Kong. May 24: The Centre for Health Protection is investigating an imported case of cholera involving 46-year-old woman who developed loose stool and watery diarrhoea beginning on May 16. The patient, who travelled to Singapore between May 10 and May 17, is receiving treatment under isolation at Princess Margaret Hospital.
• Hong Kong. May 25: The Centre for Food Safety announced the results of a survey of popular food items to assess the safety of Southeast Asian food. One mullet and one fish cake sample, out of 300 samples taken, were found to contain veterinary drug residues malachite green. All 300 samples passed the microbiological tests.
• Dharmapuri, India. May 25: A 13-year old girl is dead and 60 more are ill with food poisoning, a few hours after attending a wedding celebration at Thoppampatti colony.

Australia and New Zealand

• Auckland, New Zealand. May 25: Gerard Francis Van Den Bogaart, trading as Golden Harvest Poultry, was today sentenced by Her Honour Judge McAuslan in Papakura District Court after pleading guilty to four offences under the Animal Products Act 1999 (APA) and two offences under the Animal Welfare Act 1999.

Latin America and the Caribbean

• Managua, Nicaragua. May 25: Health authorities of two of the largest hospitals in Managua report an increase of patients with acute diarrhea.