The National Institute for Communicable Disease (NICD) has amended the number of lives claimed by the listeriosis outbreak to 189 – six more than were originally reported.
Based on the final data available, the NICD has determined that 189 out of 678 cases of listeriosis have resulted in death.
According to the NICD situation update, 982 laboratory cases of listeriosis have been reported.
Although the source of the outbreak has been identified, the NICD has indicated that new outbreak-related cases will continue to be reported.
This may be due to the possibility that, despite the recall of food products on March 4, some may not have been removed. Furthermore, the disease has an incubation period of 70 days.
A total of 23 laboratory-confirmed cases have been reported since the recall was announced.
Of these, the NICD has interviewed 17 people, and ten of them had consumed implicated food products.
These exposures occurred prior to the recall.
News24