Berries contamination might be worse than we think: experts
David Eccleston
February 26, 2015, 6:30 pm
Berries contamination might be worse than we think: experts
The race is on to pin point the cause of a Hepatitis A outbreak which has seen 19 people struck down from eating imported frozen berries.
Key Australian food producers are still concerned over the way food is often produced overseas because of poor hygiene standards and issues with their water supplies.
"Everything is possible. You can't rule out any possibility," Richard Bennett from Fresh Produce Safety Centre Australia said.
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"This could be a serious contamination, they might find other things."
Just five per cent of imported foods are scanned for a range of viruses. Hepatitis A is not routinely tested for as it is incredibly rare and hard to identify in food.
"Hepatitis A outbreaks are usually associated with contaminated water or contaminated workers," Mr Bennett said.
"It is too early to tell in this instance which one of those two causes might be involved here."
Every single batch of the recalled Nanna's and Creative Gourmet branded berries is being tested for Hepatitis A, but they're also looking for faecal related diseases including E Coli and Salmonella.
This lab is one of just a handful around the world that can analyse viruses in food and it's a fine science, as one bag of berries may only have a single piece of contaminated fruit.
In the past three years there have been 52,000 food safety breaches in China.
Australian Government officials have confirmed the processing plant which supplied the affected fruit was shut down over the new year.
But frozen berries were still not considered a high risk food in Australia.
"They were not on the list and why they were not on the list is a question for Government," Mr Bennett said.
"They update their risk assessment regularly and this had not got on their radar yet. I think berries will become a high risk product for the foreseeable future."
7News contacted the peak bodies in charge of the recall. The Federal Department of Health and Ageing, Department of Agriculture, and Food Standards Australia and New Zealand, the Victorian Health Department and the Assistant Health Minister Senator Fiona Nash all declined to comment on camera.
"We need to get on top of this, find out what caused it and correct our actions to make sure it doesn't happen again," Mr Bennett said.
The results of the tests should been known by early next week.
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"They were not on the list and why they were not on the list is a question for Government," Mr Bennett said.
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