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Timebomb of listeria in poisoned sandwiches
Valerie Elliott and David Rose
From The Times
March 17, 2007

Thousands of sandwiches on sale in schools, hospitals, sports centres and council canteens throughout the South of England were at the centre of a food poisoning alert yesterday.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) issued a warning about the possible threat to human health because symptoms — fever, flu-like illness and diarrhoea — sometimes take two to three months to become apparent.

Ready-made sandwiches sold under the Anchor Economy, Anchor Gourmet or Pomegranate labels may have been contaminated with the listeria bacterium for more than three weeks. Almost 250,000 packs could have been affected.

The Health Protection Agency said that the bug was particularly dangerous for pregnant women because infection can result in miscarriage, stillbirth or severe illness in a newborn baby. Other groups at risk are the elderly, the very young and people receiving medical treatment that compromises the immune system, such as cancer patients having chemotherapy.

For most healthy adults the risk is low but severe cases can lead to fatal complications, including septicaemia and meningitis.

Public health chiefs are clearly nervous about the scale of the possible threat because many sandwiches were sold to hospitals and medical centres, although no illness has been reported.

A string of London hospitals, including the Royal Marsden, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, Bart’s, Guy’s, St Thomas’ and the Royal London may be at risk. The Portland, a fashionable private maternity hospital, was also supplied.

Some sandwiches were for patients’ lunches, while others were for staff canteens, snack bars, coffee shops and other outpatient areas.

Sandwiches were also delivered to a range of schools, colleges and campuses. Among them are the King’s School, Canterbury, Tiffin Girls’ School, Kingston, southwest London, and the University of Surrey.

Tourist attractions, including Leeds Castle, Hever Castle, Canterbury Cathedral and Howletts Wild Animal Park, all in Kent, may be affected as well as delicatessens, catering firms and local authorities in Kent, Sussex, Essex and Greater London.

The contamination was found in routine testing at the Anchor Catering plant in Ashford, Kent. The company, whose website slogan reads “Let’s have something tasty!”, has stopped production in order to investigate the source of the contamination. It employs more than 45 staff at the site and is an approved NHS supplier.

The FSA was unable to specify the number of sandwiches at risk, although a spokeswoman suggested that it was as many as 10,000 a day.

These packs were sold over 22 days and had sell-by dates from February 21 to March 14. There was no spokesman available at Anchor.

The food watchdog was first informed about contamination on Monday by officers at Ashford Borough Council who had conducted testing on samples from the plant. Production at the plant ceased that day. Since then the company and enforcement officers have been assessing which products were affected and where they were supplied.

Graham Bickler, southeast director for the Health Protection Agency, said: “If [people] have eaten sandwiches from this company during the period in question and become ill within two to three months they must seek medical advice.” Infection can be treated effectively with antibiotics.

Andrew Wadge, the chief scientist at the FSA, said that large numbers of sandwiches may have been eaten before the problem was detected. The number of cases of listeria-related illness varies each year; 186 were reported last year in England and Wales.

— A full list of schools, hospitals and other premises that received suspect sandwiches is on the FSA website, which can be found at www.food.gov.uk .

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1527892.ece