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| Three food manufacturers have been issued with safety recall notices after being identified as the source of the listeriosis outbreak in the country. The symptoms of listeriosis include fever, muscle aches, and sometimes nausea or diarrhea. If infection spreads to the nervous system, symptoms such as headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance, or convulsions can occur. |
Tiger Brands announced on Monday that "low levels" of listeria had been detected at its plant in Pretoria.
"Tiger Brands has
taken the precautionary measure of closing the factory and has
instituted a product recall of all Snax products manufactured at the
Pretoria factory with immediate effect," the company said in a
statement.
In addition, the company said it would send samples for genome sequencing to establish the specific strain of listeria.
At least 183 people have died in an outbreak of the food-borne disease and 978 cases have been reported since January 2017.
On March 4, Health
Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced that an investigation into the
outbreak had traced the ST6 strain of the listeria bacteria, believed to
be behind the outbreak, to Tiger Brands' Enterprise factory in the
Limpopo capital of Polokwane.
The factory has since been closed. Tiger Brands CEO
Lawrence MacDougall said at the time that the company's Polokwane,
Germiston and Pretoria factories were undergoing "an extensive deep
clean" of all equipment and machinery and that structural upgrades to
the facilities were being carried out.
This was to ensure
that the facilities "exceed the highest, best practice standards for
meat processing facilities", MacDougall said.
Three law firms are pursuing Tiger Brands in two separate class actions.MacDougall was however adamant that there was no direct link between the company and the deaths.
"At Tiger Brands, we promised our stakeholders that we will not compromise on quality, safety and internal controls.
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