More than 4,000 Danes Infected with Salmonella
Pastor Dale Morgan
More than 4,000 Danes Infected with Salmonella*
By GABRIEL GABIRO
The Associated Press
Wednesday, July 2, 2008; 1:55 PM
COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- Danish health officials fear more than 4,000
people may be infected with salmonella and are checking everything from
refrigerators to credit card receipts to find the source of what may be
the worst outbreak in 15 years.
Kare Moelbak of the Ministry of Health said 330 cases have been
confirmed and about a quarter of those people have been hospitalized. No
deaths have been reported.
He said officials at the government's center for prevention and control
of infectious diseases say the real number probably exceeds 4,000 people.
Moelbak said he suspects the source is some sort of Danish food product
distributed only in Denmark, since neighboring countries have not
reported an outbreak. They believe it probably is meat, but they do not
know which product.
"Food control units are out to visit patients and see what they have in
their refrigerators. We have even had access to electronic files to get
an overview of what people have bought using their credit cards," he said.
A serious salmonella outbreak in the United States has hit more than 800
people, and health authorities there continue to search for the source
of contamination.
Moelbak said a few cases were reported in Denmark as early as February,
but that the number has risen alarmingly over the past six weeks. There
are no signs of it slowing down; about 30 new cases are confirmed per day.
"We fear it will continue at this pace," said Moelbak. He said it was
difficult to predict the course of such outbreaks, but that there was no
indication it would stop soon.
Salmonella is seldom fatal among healthy adults, but can cause diarrhea,
nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, fever and headaches.
The outbreak was of Salmonella typhimurium U292, a fairly rare type of
the roughly 2,500 kinds of salmonella.
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