SA: Victoria put on salmonella alert

AAP General News (Australia)
04-12-1999
SA: Victoria put on salmonella alert

By Valkerie Mangnall

ADELAIDE, April 12 AAP - Victorian health authorities were put on alert today as a South
Australian packing shed was banned from selling oranges after some had tested positive for
salmonella.

The South Australian Health Commission issued an order preventing Riverland packing shed
Constas Bros and its associated supplying orchard from moving or selling oranges.

SA Human Services Department statewide executive director Brendon Kearney said the packing
shed at Cooltong supplied oranges to Nippy's juice company.

Nippy's has been linked to a salmonella outbreak that struck down 486 people.

The packing shed also supplied fresh oranges to one outlet in Victoria and the Victorian
Health Department had been notified and was investigating, Professor Kearney said.

Further tests would determine if the salmonella found at the shed was the same strain as
that linked to the Nippy's outbreak.

"What we've discovered is that there is salmonella in that packing shed and of course we
need more time to type it and to show whether it is the salmonella typhimurium 135a or not,"
Professor Kearney said.

"But the evidence that there is salmonella there is enough to take action."

A spokesman for the Victorian Human Services Department said the matter was being
investigated but there had been no recent cases of salmonella linked to oranges or orange
products.

SA-based juice company Nippy's had its Nippy's, Orange Grove and Aussie Gold fresh fruit
juices banned after being linked to the salmonella outbreak.

The ban was lifted without the source of the contamination being found and all products
were tested before being released on the market.

The ban was reimposed late last month after a test batch revealed further contamination.

Nippy's managing director John Knispel said the Nippy's products went back on sale today as
planned after the health commission lifted the second ban on Friday on the condition that the
company pasteurise all of the products.

"We're having a little bit of trouble filling the shelves again because we've only had
intermittent production for the last month," Mr Knispel said.

"By the end of the week we should have caught up and then we'll be able to tell what our
sales are really going to be like."

AAP vm/was/de

KEYWORD: SALMONELLA (CARRIED EARLIER)

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