Buitoni brand frozen pizzas are suspected by the health authorities of being the source of very serious contamination of children with the bacterium
Escherichia coli
.
A national recall campaign concerning six cheeses from a Lactalis group cheese dairy was launched on Tuesday and, on Monday, several tonnes of Kinder chocolates, made in Belgium, were recalled in France for suspected salmonella.
The Pasteur Institute welcomes the improvement in the ability to detect and trace these contaminations, while the NGO Foodwatch denounces a "failing system".
Pizzas contaminated with E.coli, cheeses causing listeriosis and chocolates infected with salmonella… Health recalls seem to be linked in recent weeks and are starting to look like a black series.
Last Wednesday, health authorities confirmed that the sudden increase in E. coli contamination was linked to a contaminated batch of Nestlé brand Buitoni pizza.
Gabrielle Jones, epidemiologist at Public Health France, estimated on FranceInfo that this E.coli epidemic has “the largest scale ever described in France”.
Chocolates and cheeses
Since Monday, Ferrero has been organizing a recall of batches of Kinder products that may be contaminated with salmonella.
According to Santé Publique France, 15 people infected with salmonella consumed Kinder chocolates made in the same Belgian factory in the days preceding the infection.
Tuesday, again but this time cheese department.
A national recall campaign concerning Bries, Coulommiers and Normanville from a Lactalis group cheese dairy has been launched, because they could contain the bacterium responsible for listeriosis.
Best monitoring system
Maria Pardos de la Gandara, deputy head of the National Reference Center (CNR) Escherichia coli, Shigella and Salmonella at the Institut Pasteur assures us, “we cannot speak of a resurgence of contamination” with Salmonella.
On the other hand, “we have improved our ability to detect clustered cases.
We have gone from 10 grouped cases detected by our CNR in 2017 to more than 90 in 2020”, illustrates the researcher.
"In general, infections with these pathogens are due to contamination of raw materials (meat, raw milk and derived products, eggs, etc.) which were not detected during self-checks at the various stages of the food chain", explains she.
With regard to the E. coli bacterium, the Pasteur Institute has however noted a slight annual increase since 1996, the start of its monitoring.
A “failed system”
However, the director of information of the NGO Foodwatch is not of this opinion.
It is “neither a black series, nor a coincidence, nor the fact that we communicate better” but rather “the consequence of a failing system”, considers Ingris Kragl.
Companies "have strict processes and must do a lot of sampling and self-checking", she confirms, but she considers the control of these self-checks insufficient.
In the case of Buitoni, while health authorities suspected Fraich'Up pizzas, Nestlé claimed "to have done 75 negative tests [for E. coli bacteria] in the factory".
The link has since been confirmed and images denouncing the hygiene conditions at the Coudry factory have been published.
The production of these pizzas was even banned in this factory in the North by the prefect after hygiene inspections carried out on March 22 and 29.
Ongoing investigation
About this bacterium, rarer but more deadly, the Paris prosecutor's office announced that it had opened an investigation, in particular for injuries and involuntary homicides.
Two children have died and dozens more have been hospitalized from an E. coli infection.
However, at this time it is impossible to attribute responsibility to Buitoni pizzas, let alone speculate on an overall malfunction.
Especially since the three recalls in question each concern different companies or even different production sites.
For Buitoni pizzas, it is the Nestlé brand and the Caudry factory in the North.
The contaminated cheeses come from the Fromagerie de Livarot (Normandy), which belongs to Lactalys.
As for chocolates, the Kinder (Ferrero) production plant is located in Belgium.
Late reporting
But “it was the health authorities who had to sound the alarm and not the companies!
“, notes Ingrid Kragl who believes that we “cannot trust” these companies which “seem to fall from the clouds and to have seen nothing while people have been sick for a while”.
For the E. coli bacterium, the first cases date back to January – even if it is not certain that these first patients were contaminated by one of Nestlé's frozen pizzas.
“The fact of having found the food source at the origin of these 2 epidemics [pizzas and chocolates] clearly highlights the effectiveness of our national surveillance system and the proper functioning of European collaboration in terms of health. public", welcomes Sophie Lefèvre, also deputy head of the CNR Escherichia coli, Shigella and Salmonella at the Institut Pasteur.
“No lesson has been learned”
Ingrid Kragl, she calls for a more preventive system and points to the job cuts within the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF).
The Association for Children's Health is also protesting against "the insufficiency of health security in the food industry in Europe" in a press release on Wednesday.
The "recalls of dangerous products arrive each time after hospitalizations, or even after several deaths", regrets the president of the association Quentin Guillemain.
He believes that “no lesson has been learned” from the Lactalys contaminated infant milk scandal.
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E.coli bacteria
Salmonellosis
Listeria
Nestle
Ferrero
Lactalis