The Jakarta Globe, August 6, 2013.
Indonesia remains unaffected by tainted dairy products recently exported by New Zealand containing traces of bacteria that may lead to botulism, an official with the Ministry of Health said on Tuesday.
“The product in question has never been imported to Indonesia. Usually, it’s only exported to countries such as China, Malaysia, Australia, Thailand, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia,” Tjandra Yoga Aditama, the Health Ministry’s director general for disease control and environmental health, said.
Based on information released by the International Food Safety Network (Infosan) the dairy products contaminated by clostridium botulinum bacteria have never been sold to Indonesia, he said.
Previously, global dairy giant Fonterra revealed that some of its exported whey products — including infant formula — may contain bacteria that could lead to foodborne botulism, a potentially fatal illness.
Tjandra said that the bacteria could cause neurotoxin intoxication, which could lead to breathing trouble, muscle weakness and problems swallowing. In some cases, the symptoms could develop into a potentially fatal paralytic illness.
“Usually the symptoms start to appear 12 to 36 hours after the contaminated product is consumed. In some cases, the symptoms did not appear until 10 days later,” he said.
The Ministry of Health has alerted health offices in 33 provinces to tighten their supervision in order to prevent the tainted product from entering Indonesia.
“I have issued the instruction that serious food poisoning cases must be reported immediately, especially after the patients consumed dairy products,” Tjandra said.
“I would like to emphasize that the contaminated dairy products mentioned above have never been distributed to Indonesia — we are only taking some necessary precautions,” he said.
Fonterra released a statement on August 4 admitting that three batches of its whey protein concentrate have been tainted with clostridium.
Some countries, including China, have banned all imported powder coming from from New Zealand.
There have been no reports of any illness linked to consumption of the affected whey protein. It was made in May last year, although the contamination was only confirmed in tests last week.
In a statement on its website, China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said it had ordered importers to withdraw any contaminated products and called on quarantine officials to step up inspections of dairy products imported from New Zealand.
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di 6 aug 2013 - 23:06