VIENNA: Austrian authorities have flagged a potential link between several salmonella infections across Europe and Polish kebab chicken, reported German news agency (dpa).
The Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES) said Wednesday that it had traced 27 cases of salmonella between February and July in Austria and other European countries to the meat.
In one case in Austria, someone had died from the salmonella.
There were also reported cases in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark and Norway, according to an earlier AGES report from early August.
The Robert Koch Institute disease control agency registered 10 cases in Germany.
“There are currently three outbreaks that may be linked to the reports from Austria,” they said on Wednesday.
The Austrian agency tracked the origin of the infections, which led them to believe all the infected had eaten chicken kebab beforehand at restaurants that all used skewers from Poland.
According to the European Union’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed database, Poland had notified other European countries nine times about contaminated chicken kebab between March and April.
At the end of March, Poland was the EU’s largest producer of poultry meat, the second largest exporter in the EU and the fourth largest worldwide, according to the Polish Agricultural Ministry.
Production in 2022 reportedly amounted to more than three million tonnes, marking an increase of 8.2 per cent compared to the year before.
More than half of the produced meat is exported. – BERNAMA-dpa
