FDA continues to investigate Listeria outbreak; Salmonella outbreak traced to imported pastries ends with import alert

The FDA has initiated a site inspection related to a Listeria monocytogenes outbreak that has sickened more than two dozen people.

Although it has also begun sample testing, the Food and Drug Administration is not reporting what site is being inspected or what is being sampled. The agency has not reported a traceback effort.

The agency has confirmed that 28 people are patients in the outbreak, but it is not reporting their ages or where they live. The FDA first posted the outbreak on March 13.

For a separate outbreak of infections from Listeria monocytogenes, the FDA has declared the outbreak over without having determined a source of the pathogen. There were 36 confirmed patients, but the agency did not report their ages, where they lived or whether there were any fatalities.

The FDA initiated traceback, onsite inspections and sample analysis. However, the agency did not report what food it traced or what samples were tested. The agency also did not report what facility it inspected.

In other outbreak news, the FDA has closed its investigation into a Salmonella outbreak traced to Sweet Cream brand mini pastries. The FDA confirmed 18 patients with one having required hospitalization. The patients were spread across seven states: California, Illinois, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

The outbreak in the United States was linked to an outbreak in Canada that was also traced to the mini pastries. Canadian public health authorities reported 69 confirmed patients with 22 of them having been hospitalized.

The implicated mini pastries were manufactured in Italy and exported into the United States by Importations Piu Che Dolci Inc. of Quebec, Canada. The pastries were recalled in Canada and the United States.

Using the Laboratory Flexible Funding Model program, the Communicable Disease Service within the New Jersey Department of Health collaborated with the City of Paterson Division of Health and the Public Health and Environmental Laboratories to collect and analyze Sweet Cream-brand mini pastry samples from a warehouse that received the recalled products. Three samples tested positive for Salmonella and are a Whole Genome Sequencing match to the outbreak strain.

The FDA has added the pastries from the Italian manufacturer, Sweet Cream  S.R.L.S., to the U.S. Red List of Import Alert #99-19, which means the product will be held at the border without inspection and not distributed in the United States.

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