The Public Health Agency of Canada said nearly 1,600 people may have been infected with salmonella linked to the recall of mini pastries.
The federal agency’s director of outbreak management said Monday that calculation is based on the agency’s estimation that for every reported case, there’s another 26.1 in the community.
“We would estimate that 1,592 people have been affected by this event. The ones that we don’t know about may have had mild or moderate symptoms and had those resolve at home without seeking medical care,” April Hexemer said from Guelph, Ont.
PHAC issued an outbreak notice Saturday stating 61 cases of salmonella were linked to Sweet Cream brand mini pastries that were served at bakeries, hotels, restaurants, cafeterias, hospitals, retirement residences, and catered events.
The recalled pastries were imported from an Italian manufacturer, which has paused production.
Hexemer said the public health agency launched an investigation on Dec.12 and noticed that an unusual number of the people infected had attended catered events that served “fancy desserts.”
“We pursued records from the catered events to identify which foods, in particular, were served at them, and we identified that the Sweet Cream brand mini pastries were served at the events,” Hexemer said.
Investigators tested specimens from those infected and found 16 cases had matching genetic features, providing strong evidence that those who got sick were exposed to the same product.
Of the 61 sickened, 33 were in Quebec, 21 in Ontario, four in British Columbia, two in Alberta and one in New Brunswick. Hexemer says the mini pastries were distributed in Nova Scotia, too, but there’d been no reported illnesses in the province as of Monday afternoon.
Hexemer said she anticipates more cases will be reported because there’s typically a two-to-seven-week delay before an infected person reports their illness.
Joseph Panetta, a Quebec-based sales manager of importations at Piu Che Dolci, which distributes the Italian products in Canada and the United States, said they are picking up the recalled products from all of their Canadian customers and will send them to the laboratory to be tested. He said their U.S. clients have not been affected.
“We’re not the manufacturer nor producer. We’re just the importer and distributor. So I apologize on behalf of, on our part, but we had no idea of this, and we’re doing what we can to make it right,” said Panetta.
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