Listeriosis hard to f ight, health MEC admits

GAUTENG Health MEC Gwen Ramokgopa has admitted that it is proving difficult for the provincial government to manage the spread of listeriosis in the province.

Ramokgopa presented a report to the Gauteng portfolio committee on health yesterday detailing active plans to deal with the spread of the bacteria.

She told the committee that a number of teams had been set up guided by specialists and experts from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and World Health Organisation to deal with the spread of listeriosis.

Ramokgopa admitted it had been hard trying to contain the spread of the disease.

“It is not as easy as management of a measles outbreak, which we know and are able to contain within a limited period of time.

“But this one has been really difficult and that is why we are working with the agriculture sector to make sure that there are no possible areas of risk and infection.

“Gauteng is also heavily affected because of the fact that it is a referral centre‚” she said.

The disease broke out in early December. Last week‚ the death toll from the outbreak topped 100 – the worst documented listeriosis outbreak in global history.

The NICD announced that the number of confirmed listeriosis cases was now 852, and 107 people had died.

Of those confirmed cases‚ 42% were babies less than a month old‚ pregnant women being 20 times more likely to contract the disease than other healthy adults.

And still the source of the outbreak – thought to be a food product or range of products from one company – remains unknown.

Most of the cases – 59% – have been reported in Gauteng‚ with 13% of cases in the Western Cape and 7% in KwaZulu-Natal.

About two-thirds of cases were confirmed in state hospitals and a third in private hospitals. – Penwell Dlamini