People should wash eggs before cooking them and avoid storing them at room temperature or eating raw or half-cooked eggs to prevent salmonella infection, health experts said on Friday.
Local Chinese-language media reported that the Chiayi District Prosecutors’ Office on Thursday indicted four people running a breakfast eatery in Chiayi County after a student died and 44 people fell sick after allegedly eating their meals.
People can contract salmonellosis — an infection caused by salmonella bacteria — by eating food tainted by animal or human feces, such as uncooked or half-boiled eggs, milk and meat products, the Centers for Disease Control said.
Photo: Lin Hui-chin, Taipei Times
Infants and adults with urinary incontinence are more vulnerable to the disease, it said.
Acute gastroenteritis is one of the disease’s most common symptoms, while nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever and stomach pain can occur within six to 48 hours of infection, the centers said.
While people often recover in 72 hours after having a fever, infants, elderly people and people with a weakened immune system could suffer from bacteria in the bloodstream or other complications, the centers said.
Salmonella is often found in animal intestines and is therefore more likely to pollute egg shells, said Huang Li-min (黃立民), director of National Taiwan University Hospital’s Department of Pediatrics.
If the shells of polluted eggs are not cleaned, the bacteria could spread to utensils and kitchen workspaces, he said, adding that people can also fall ill by eating eggs stored at room temperature for a long time.
Doctors usually prescribe antibiotics to treat salmonellosis, Huang said, adding that people are advised to wash their hands before preparing food and avoid eating uncooked meat or eggs.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,