It is unlikely the location of the source of last year's
Salmonella typhimurium phage type 42 outbreak will ever be
pin-pointed, New Zealand Food Safety Authority compliance and
investigation director Geoff Allen says.
The outbreak, which caused a spike in salmonella occurrence,
mainly in the South Island, including at least 15 cases in
Otago, late last year was linked to flour.
Grain may have been contaminated by birds before being made
into flour.
The flour believed to be affected was withdrawn from sale and
the number of cases dropped, but finding where the
contamination occurred had not been easy because there were
up to 900 possibilities.
Mr Allen said the authority was trying to use the event to
provide farmers and mills with education about suitable
storage of grain.
"We'll be working with associations involved in this to get
some form of a reminder about this, maybe even look at
guidelines," he said.
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