Question

You read in the news that two elderly people have died of apparent food poisoning from tainted meat. The state epidemiologist said there has been a recent outbreak of a disease with the following symptoms; fever, nausea,muscle aches and often diarrhea. The central nervous system was affected in some of the cases causing confusion, stiff neck, headache, and convulsions. Nationwide 40 people have been infected, a high percentage of those were pregnant women and many resulted in the deaths of the fetuses. The CDC suspected prepackaged meats like cold cuts and hot dogs and stated that pregnant women, newborns, the immunocompromized and the elderly were the most susceptible to this disease.What is the organism that is most likely the cause of this disease? Why do you think it is associated with lunch meats and not hamburgers? This disease is considered "subclinical" in most other healthy individuals, what does this mean? How is this disease transmitted?

Answer 1

Usually food poisoning is associated with bacteria. Here as the disease is common in pregnant women and immunocompromized individuals and as CDC suspects prepackaged meats as the source, the organism can be the bacteria Listeria.

Listeria can be killed by proper cooking of foods. In case of hamburgers, it is properly cooked and therfore the bacteria gets killed. But in lunch meats, the chance is that they can get bacteria after they are cooked and they are eaten as such. Improper cooking of lunch meats can also be the reason.

The term 'subclinical' refers to diseases without any symptoms. Here in listeria infection, usually pregnant women and those individuals that have weakened immune system are effected. And healthy people doesn't shows any symptoms of listeria infection. Hence, the disease is considered as subclinical in most healthy individuals.

Listeriosis can be spread from mother to foetus. Also eating listeria contaminated food can cause the speading of the disease. Sometimes, the farm animals can be infected with the bacteria and may not be developing any symptoms. In such cases they can contaminate the foods that are of animal origin like meat or diary products.