E.coli outbreak forces full recall of Errington Cheese products

Food Standards Scotland (FSS) issued a food alert for action (FAFA) for all products produced by Errington Cheese on 14 September.

The decision was not taken lightly, says FSS; it is fully aware of the impact on the business, but the agency stresses its priority is to protect public health.

The recent outbreak of E. coli O157 has now affected 22 people, 13 of whom have required hospitalisation and, tragically, one child died as a consequence. The multi agency Incident Management Team (IMT), chaired by Health Protection Scotland, concluded that, based on strong epidemiological evidence, the outbreak of illness in humans was linked to Dunsyre Blue cheese, produced by Errington Cheese.

Of the 22 confirmed cases to date, the IMT has established that 19 had eaten blue cheese prior to becoming ill. Of these, 15 are known to have eaten Dunsyre Blue while others cannot be certain about the brand of blue cheese they consumed. Investigations are ongoing on the other cases.

Since the outbreak was declared over on 5 September 2016, two new cases have been identified with the same outbreak strain of E. coli O157 and the IMT has consequently reconvened.

Errington Cheese has undertaken two voluntary recalls of cheese, and the FSS has initiated two further recalls – on 10 and 14 September 2016. Errington Cheese has publically commented that E. coli O157 has not been found in its cheese. This is inaccurate.

Potentially harmful strains of E.coli and the shiga toxin (stx) genes that can cause illness in humans have been found in a number of different batches of different cheeses produced by Errington Cheese. This means that FSS is not satisfied that the controls and production methods used by the business are producing safe food. Furthermore, the reliance on a limited number of negative test results as evidence that the food is safe provides insufficient assurance, as it is clear that multiple samples across different cheese batches have had positive results.

Throughout this incident FSS has taken a proportionate approach based on the evidence and it considers that the evidence now justifies a full recall of Errington Cheese products to ensure the protection of public health.

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