1887
Outbreaks Open Access
Like 0

Abstract

A genomic cluster of Braenderup ST22, a serovar of subsp. which causes symptoms of gastrointestinal illness, was notified by Danish authorities to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) on 3 May 2021. By 6 July 2021, Braenderup outbreak cases (n = 348) had been reported from 12 countries in the European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) and the United Kingdom (UK), including 68 hospitalised cases. With support from affected EU/EEA countries, and in partnership with the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), ECDC established an international outbreak investigation team to rapidly identify the source and prevent outbreak spread. Consumption information was shared with affected countries through a standard line list, revealing that 124 of 197 cases (63%) reported having eaten (any) melons within 7 days prior to disease onset. The speed and completeness of the investigation, which identified the outbreak vehicle as galia melons imported from Honduras in June 2021, was a direct result of extensive collaboration and information sharing between countries’ national food safety and public health authorities. This article describes the outbreak and the benefits, successes, and challenges of multi-country collaboration for consideration in future large foodborne outbreaks across Europe.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2024.29.1.2300273
2024-01-04
2024-11-21
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2024.29.1.2300273
Loading
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/eurosurveillance/29/1/eurosurv-29-1-4.html?itemId=/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2024.29.1.2300273&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Andino A, Hanning I. Salmonella enterica: survival, colonization, and virulence differences among serovars. ScientificWorldJournal. 2015;2015:520179.  https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/520179  PMID: 25664339 
  2. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Multi-country outbreak of Salmonella Braenderup ST22, presumed to be linked to imported melons - 20 July 2021. Stockholm: ECDC/EFSA; 2021. Available from: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/rapid-outbreak-assessment-multi-country-outbreak-salmonella-braenderup-st22
  3. Zhou Z, Alikhan N-F, Mohamed K, Fan Y, Achtman M, Agama Study Group. The EnteroBase user’s guide, with case studies on Salmonella transmissions, Yersinia pestis phylogeny, and Escherichia core genomic diversity. Genome Res. 2020;30(1):138-52.  https://doi.org/10.1101/gr.251678.119  PMID: 31809257 
  4. R Core Team. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing; 2020. Available from: http://www.Rproject.org/
  5. Stata Corporation LLC. Stata version 17.0. College Station, TX, USA. 2021.
  6. Dallman T, Ashton P, Schafer U, Jironkin A, Painset A, Shaaban S, et al. SnapperDB: a database solution for routine sequencing analysis of bacterial isolates. Bioinformatics. 2018;34(17):3028-9.  https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/bty212  PMID: 29659710 
  7. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). ECDC strategic framework for the integration of molecular and genomic typing into European surveillance and multi-country outbreak investigations – 2019-2021. Stockholm: ECDC; 2019. Available from: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/ecdc-strategic-framework-integration-molecular-and-genomic-typing-european
  8. Zhou Z, Charlesworth J, Achtman M. HierCC: a multi-level clustering scheme for population assignments based on core genome MLST. Bioinformatics. 2021;37(20):3645-6.  https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btab234  PMID: 33823553 
  9. Alikhan N-F, Zhou Z, Sergeant MJ, Achtman M. A genomic overview of the population structure of Salmonella. PLoS Genet. 2018;14(4):e1007261.  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1007261  PMID: 29621240 
  10. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Communicable disease threats report, 16-22 May 2021, week 20. Stockholm: ECDC; 2021. Available from: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/communicable-disease-threats-report-16-22-may-2021-week-20
  11. World Health Organization (WHO). INFOSAN Quarterly Summary, 2021 #3. Geneva: WHO; 2021. [Accessed: 21 Oct 2021]. Available from: https://www.who.int/news/item/10-11-2021-infosan-quarterly-summary-2021-3
  12. EUR-Lex. Official Journal of the European Union. L 453/6. Legislation. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. 17 Dec 2021. Available from: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L:2021:453:FULL&from=EN
  13. Byrne L, Fisher I, Peters T, Mather A, Thomson N, Rosner B, et al. A multi-country outbreak of Salmonella Newport gastroenteritis in Europe associated with watermelon from Brazil, confirmed by whole genome sequencing: October 2011 to January 2012. Euro Surveill. 2014;19(31):6-13.  https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES2014.19.31.20866  PMID: 25138971 
  14. Munnoch SA, Ward K, Sheridan S, Fitzsimmons GJ, Shadbolt CT, Piispanen JP, et al. A multi-state outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul in Australia associated with cantaloupe consumption. Epidemiol Infect. 2009;137(03):367.  https://doi.org/10.1017/S0950268808000861  https://doi.org/10.1017/S0950268808000861  PMID: 24004121 
  15. McCollum JT, Cronquist AB, Silk BJ, Jackson KA, O’Connor KA, Cosgrove S, et al. Multistate outbreak of listeriosis associated with cantaloupe. N Engl J Med. 2013;369(10):944-53.  https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1215837  PMID: 24004121 
  16. Chan Y-W, Hoban A, Moore H, Greig DR, Painset A, Jorgensen F, et al. , Incident Management Teams. Two Outbreaks of Foodborne Gastrointestinal Infection Linked to Consumption of Imported Melons, United Kingdom, March to August 2021. J Food Prot. 2023;86(1):100027.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfp.2022.100027  PMID: 36916586 
  17. Regmi P, Jones D, Gast R, Guard J, Karcher D. Egg carton and eggshell: is there a possibility of Salmonella cross-contamination. J Appl Poult Res. 2021;30(4):100185.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.japr.2021.100185 
/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2024.29.1.2300273
Loading

Data & Media loading...

Supplementary data

Submit comment
Close
Comment moderation successfully completed
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error