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From news services in Seoul comes world that a South Korean baby formula is contaminated with Enterobacter sakazakii, the baceria that can cause meningitis in infants.

South Korea's National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service (NVRQS) said Enterobacter sakazakii bacteria was found in 695kg of powdered milk made by Maeil Dairies Co. June 17. The discovery was made during regular sample testing by the agency under the food and agriculture ministry.

The government agency said the 53,460 individual 13g packages were contaminated overall, although none had reached the retail market.

Enterobacter sakazakii or Cronobacter poses particular risks to babies under six months old or weighing under five and half pounds. However, it poses no threat if mixed with boiling water exceeding 158 decrees.

"Investigators are trying to find the cause of the contamination that may have been related to the manufacturing process or the ingredients used," an NVRQS official said.

He said all products suspected of being tainted with the bacteria are currently in a holding area and will be destroyed, with Maeil ordered to take steps to prevent a recurrence.

The products contaminated were all disposable packages of the company's Premium Goong 1 baby formula. Larger cans containing the formula were not tainted with the bacteria.

According to financial websites: Maeil Dairy Industry Co., Ltd. with annual sales in the $1 billion range produces baby foods, beverages, yogurts, and soybean milk products. It also offers milk, fermented milk, cheese, nutritional meals for the pregnant, and oil products. In addition, the company imports and supplies chocolates, olive oil, and grape seed oil. Its products are used in hotels, restaurants, bakeries, and coffee franchises. Maeil Dairy Industry Co., Ltd. offers its products through contracted distributors. The company exports its products to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Sudan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, the United States, Guam, Canada, Mexico, and the Russian Federation.
 

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 Editor's Note: This is another report on the presentations that were made in Dublin earlier this year at the 1st International Meeting on Cronobacter (Enterobacter Sakazakii).  In this segment, we hear from Dr. Patrick Druggan, Oxoid Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG24 8PW, United Kingdom.

Biography: Patrick Druggan  is Principle Scientist, Oxoid Thermofisher, Basingstoke, UK.

He received an Honours BSc in Food Science from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK. He has worked in the diagnostics industry for 22 years. He designed his first chromogenic medium in 1989 while working at Gibco.

Patrick studied part-time for his Ph.D. at the Pharmacy Department of University of Brighton, UK. His thesis was on improvements in the resuscitation of heat-injured Salmonella species from processed food samples.

He synthesized a number of autocytotoxic compounds that could be used during pre-enrichment to inhibit competitive microflora while allowing injured Salmonella spp. to resuscitate and grow.

This invention lead to the development of Inhibigens.™ His skills in chemistry and microbiology have allowed him to design a number of successful rapid biochemical tests and chromogenic culture media, including Druggan-Forsythe-Iversen Agar for the isolation of Cronobacter spp. 

Summary – - Culture media for isolation and detection of Cronobacter species

In 2001 a pre-term infant died of meningitis caused by Enterobacter sakazakii (Cronobacter spp.).  Infant formula milk (IFM) was implicated as a potential source of the infection.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) independently develop a method for enumeration of this emerging  pathogen in IFM using culture collections from national bodies that have later been shown to be poorly defined.

This method was introduced in 2002 and has regulatory standing for the import of IFM and skimmed milk powder in to the USA and a number of other countries. The FDA method is a modification of the procedure for the detection of Enterobacteriaceae, with the addition of yellow pigmentation of colonies for presumptive identification of Cronobacter spp.

It should be remembered that the FDA method was developed in a short time due to a public health concern, and this would have put a time constraint and significant pressure on those working on Enterobacter sakazakii (Cronobacter) to get a working method in the field as soon as possible. The FDA method has been shown to have a sensitivity of around 50 percent and a specificity of around 70 percent. Only 75 percent of Cronobacter strains phenotypically express yellow pigmentation, and the low specificity of the method coupled with the recommendation that only five presumptive Enterobacteriaceae colonies are tested from Violet Red Bile Glucose Agar (VRBGA) may explain the poor sensitivity of the method.

Assuming the prevalence of Cronobacter spp. in IFM is around 2 percent, the FDA method will fail to detect around 50 percent of batches contaminated with Cronobacter, while around 95 percent of rejected batches will not contain this organism.

This high rate of failure has lead many stakeholders to question the usefulness of the FDA method. This presentation reviews developments in culture media since the release of the FDA method in 2002, with specific emphasis on media that have improved the specificity of methods for Cronobacter spp. The unique phenotypic trait of this emerging pathogen that aid and hinder design of methods is discussed.  

POWERPOINT is here.

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