Listeria in Italian seasoned cooked ham from the European market

This week between Italian exports to other countries withdrawn from the market, France and Italy activated the European system of early warning (Rasff no 2018.1882 of 05.07.18) advising Health authorities of different countries on the presence of Listeria monocytogenes in seasoned cooked ham produced in Italy and also sold abroad. Currently, distribution information is not yet available. The reason for this withdrawal is contamination by Listeria monocytogenes, a bacterium that can cause gastrointestinal disorders and in some at-risk subjects, more serious systemic diseases such as meningitis. It is recalled that listeriosis is part of the group of definable diseases as food toxins and takes its name from the pathogen responsible for the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. Listeriosis is especially dangerous for immunocompromised people, cancer patients, diabetes, AIDS, the elderly, newborns and pregnant women. Listeriosis can take two forms:

diarrhea, more typical of food poisoning, which manifests itself in a few hours of ingestion

invasive or systemic, which by the intestinal tissue and blood flow spreads by developing more acute forms of sepsis, encephalitis and meningitis. In this case, between the ingestion of risky foods and the manifestation of symptoms can also spend quite long periods, sometimes up to 90 days. Given the serious risk that arises from the contamination of the particularly pathogenic bacteria, Giovanni D & # 39; Agata, president of the "Rights Window", recommends a maximum warning, until the Ministry of Health communicates on its website, in the "Notices" the batches, the producer and the name of the seasoned cooked ham affected by the recall of the European market and not only