Salmonella Mbandaka ST413 outbreak in EU/EEA & UK
Since September 2021, a cross-border outbreak of Salmonella Mbandaka ST413 has persisted across the European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) and the United Kingdom (UK), spanning over two years. By November 30, 2022, a total of 196 cases had been documented and outlined in a collaborative report by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). As of March 15, 2024, the tally rose to 300 cases, marking an increase of 104 instances. These cases were distributed across Estonia (n=3), Finland (n=98), France (n=16), Germany (n=2), Ireland (n=7), the Netherlands (n=1), and the United Kingdom (n=173), as defined by European case standards. Among these cases, twenty-three required hospitalization, with six experiencing septicaemia, and tragically, one fatality was recorded in the UK.
Initial assessments in November 2022 implicated ready-to-eat chicken products and/or fresh chicken meat as likely sources of infection, based on case interrogations conducted in Finland and the UK. Subsequent investigations by food safety authorities in Estonia, Finland, and the Netherlands, coupled with the exchange of genomic food data with EFSA in 2024, pinpointed frozen steam-cooked chicken breast, originating from Ukraine, as the culprit behind the infections. These tainted batches had been brought in by non-EU entities and circulated within both the EU/EEA and UK markets.
The shelf life of the contaminated frozen chicken meat products expired between November and December 2023. The most recent cases were identified in Finland in October 2023 and in the UK in February 2024. Given the expiration of the identified tainted batches and the enforcement of control measures, the probability of fresh infections stemming from these sources is deemed low. However, despite these measures, cases persisted throughout 2023 within the EU/EEA and into early 2024 within the UK, hinting at undiscovered pathways of exposure necessitating further inquiry and presenting an ongoing albeit diminished risk of new infections.
