The Western Cape has recorded the second highest number of cases of listeriosis, which has already killed 61 people countrywide.
Yesterday, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi addressed journalists in Pretoria, announcing a range of interventions in the health sector in a bid to protect the population, particularly newborn babies, from the epidemic.
Motsoaledi said that more than 700 cases of listeriosis had now been confirmed in South Africa.
Listeriosis is caused by a bacterium, listeria, which manifests in a flu-like illness with diarrhoea, fever, general body pain, vomiting and weakness, as well as infection of the blood stream and of the brain.
Gauteng has recorded the most cases - 442 of the confirmed 727 total.
There are so far 92 confirmed cases in the Western Cape.
Last month, the provincial health department said of the then 83 cases of listeriosis recorded, they only had the outcome information on 21 cases, of which five people had died - three adults and two infants.
“There are 727 laboratory-confirmed cases that occurred in the country. This means that since the last press conference of December 5, 2017, a total of 170 extra cases emerged,” said
Motsoaledi.
“Of the 170, a total of 51 had already occurred before December 5, only we are discovering them now as the search continues, hence they were
captured retroactively. Therefore, there are 119 new cases that occurred since our last press
conference.”
During the briefing in December, Motsoaledi said that 36 patients had died.
“Now out of the 727 laboratory-confirmed cases that we know about, we were only able to trace 134 actual patients.
“One hundred and thirty four out of 727 is only 18%.
“This means that we still have a very long way to go in searching.
“Out of the 134 traced patients, 61 had passed on.”
Provincial health department spokesperson Marika Champion could not confirm the number of deaths in the province.
“Our staff have been placed on alert to be on the lookout for patients presenting with corresponding symptoms, so that they can be detected early and samples taken for testing,” she said.
The National Institute For Communicable Diseases’ latest report shows that as of last
Friday cases in both public (473 or 65%) and private (251 or 35%) healthcare sectors have been diagnosed.
Females account for 55% of cases where gender is reported.
“When we view statistics of affected people, we note that of all the vulnerable groups, neonates (newborn babies within the first 28 days of life) are the worst affected if we analyse it by age group from birth to 93 years.
“In this case, neonates alone account for close to 40% of the cases,” Motsoaledi said.
“Of note is that of all the neonates that get affected, 96% had early onset disease, that is, from birth to six days
after birth.
“It is clear that these neonates are simply vulnerable due to their pregnant mothers. They are infected by their mothers at birth.”
Motsoaledi instructed health workers across South Africa to “pay special attention to all pregnant women”.
There are 1.2 million pregnant women in South Africa annually.
In 2014, the Health Department launched the MomConnect programme which registers every pregnant woman through their mobile phone to receive regular updates before and after giving birth.
“I have now given instruction that all of them (pregnant women) be sent instruction about listeria,” he said.
Health authorities have not yet linked clinical isolates obtained from infected patients to a particular foodstuff or a particular food production site.
In December, environmental health practitioners from the City of Tshwane investigated a patient admitted to hospital with listeriosis. A chicken sample collected from the fridge at the patient's home tested positive for listeria monocytogenes.
This chicken was traced back to the store, and from there traced back to the abattoir it was sourced from by Sovereign Foods.
As a precaution, the abattoir was served with a prohibition notice pending further investigation. But tests failed to pick up this specific outbreak strain of listeria.
The public has been encouraged to wash their hands before preparing food, before eating and after going to the toilet, to thoroughly cook raw foods from animal sources, such as beef, pork or poultry, and to wash raw vegetables and fruit thoroughly before eating.
The department has also advised the public to wash and sanitise all surfaces and equipment used for food preparation and use only pasteurised dairy products.