There’s a significant decrease in listeriosis: Motsoaledi

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi says there’s a significant decrease in the number of people contacting Listeriosis since cold meat products from Tiger Brands and Rainbow Chicken were recalled earlier this year.

The Minister says when these products were recalled on the 4th of March, there’s was nearly 1 000 people affected. He however says they’re now recording few cases of people contracting the disease on daily basis.

He was delivering his budget vote speech in Parliament.

“I am happy to announce that since the recall we’ve been having less than 5 cases per week in the past five weeks compared to the more than 40 cases per week in the period before the recall.”

Meanwhile the Capricorn District Municipality in Limpopo says it is waiting for processed food manufacturer, Tiger Brands, to give feedback on the decontamination being carried out at one of the factories that the listeria outbreak has affected.

Municipal health inspectors discovered listeria at the Enterprise factory in Polokwane in February, before the official public announcement.

A National Institute for Communicable Diseases report has placed the number of listeriosis deaths countrywide, at 193. Municipal spokesperson, Moffat Senyatsi, says they regularly meet with Tiger Brand officials.

“We are now waiting for them to come back to us and say we believe that we have taken steps to comply with the notice and we have disinfected the processing lines and you can now come back and do a second round of tests that confirm that surfaces are now free of bacteria. We had a meeting with them last week to check progress.”