In an effort to prevent future listeriosis outbreaks, the National Department of Health (NDoH) has formed a multi-sectoral incident management team (IMT).
According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), the team will facilitate the development of a listeria emergency response plan, strengthening the response to the outbreak and preventing future outbreaks.
In an incident report released on Monday, the NICD advised all ‘ready-to-eat’ food processing factories to review their processes and ensure that their packaged products were safe for distribution and consumption by the public.
“The National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) and private clinical laboratories are requested to continue sending all listeria isolates to NICD to facilitate case monitoring and whole genome sequencing.”
According to the report, the number of listeriosis cases reported per week has dropped since implicated products were recalled on March 4. Eight cases were reported in the last week.