The Government Analyst/ Food & Drug Department yesterday said that certain batches of two brands of foreign peanut butter: Peter Pan and Great Value may contain salmonella which has sickened hundreds in the US and consumers should check their jars.
The department said that it is in receipt of information that the batches are being recalled by its maker ConAgra Foods Inc and the Food and Drug Administra-tion (FDA) in the US. The company is recalling Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter jars that have the product code 2111 on their cover. At least one member of the public told Stabroek News that that code number was on a bottle that had been purchased in Guyana.
The Food and Drug Department is calling on importers, retailers and consumers to surrender the product to the department. Con-sumers are also being asked to discard the peanut butter if it has the suspect batch number.
According to a Reuters report the FDA has linked 288 cases of food poisoning in 39 US states to Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter, both made at a single facility in Georgia by ConAgra. No deaths have been linked to the outbreak.
“The outbreak appears to be ongoing and the first consumer may have become ill in August 2006,” the FDA said in a statement according to the report.
“Symptoms of food borne illness caused by salmonella include fever, diarrhoea and abdominal cramps,” the FDA further said.
“In persons with poor underlying health or weakened immune systems, salmonella can invade the bloodstream and cause life-threatening infections,” the report said.
“ConAgra is recalling all Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter beginning with product code 2111 that already was distributed,” the FDA stated in the Reuters report.
It said that the company will cease production until the exact cause of contamination is identified and eliminated.
Salmonella are a family of bacteria that can cause diarrhoea, fever and stomach pain in people. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports 40,000 cases a year in the United States, and 600 deaths.
“Salmonella infections usually resolve in five to seven days and often do not require treatment unless the patient becomes severely dehydrated or the infection spreads from the intestines,” the CDC says on its website, http://www.cdc.gov.
