An outbreak of listeria in melons in the US may cause more illness and deaths in coming weeks, say US health officials. Now illness specialists at Irwin Mitchell are calling for extra vigilance to ensure that such bacteria does not spread to the United Kingdom.  To date, the outbreak has caused at least 139 illnesses and up to 29 deaths, across 26 US states, making it one of the deadliest food outbreak in the country in more than a decade. The outbreak has been linked back to contaminated melons at Jensen Farms in Colorado who supply a number of multinational food distribution companies including Aldi and US Foods.  

Symptoms 

Listeriosis is an infection caused by the bacteria called Listeria monocytogenes. In most people, listeriosis is mild and causes flu-like symptoms or diarrhoea, vomiting and the symptoms usually pass after 3 or 4 days without the need for any medical treatment.

However, in rare cases, the infection can spread to other parts of your body and cause serious complications, such as meningitis which doctors describe as invasive listeriosis. If this is the case, you'll need to be treated with antibiotics in hospital for several weeks.

How to prevent Listeriosis

Practice good food hygiene! For example, you should:

• not use food that's past its ‘use by’ date
• follow storage instructions on food labels
• make sure that the temperature of your fridge is between 0ºC and 5ºC
• cook food thoroughly