Rainbow Foods concludes listeriosis tests

RCL Foods says its Sasolburg facility has tested negative for ST6 listeria - the strain of the air-borne disease linked to the current outbreak.

"Tests conducted by an independent laboratory in France, which is considered to be a leading expert in this field, have shown that the plant is clear of the ST6 listeria strain," reads a statement by the company.

So far a total of 978 cases have been reported and 183 people have died of the disease since January 2017.

The National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) earlier this month confirmed an Enterprise factory in Polokwane as the source of the outbreak.

It also implicated an Enterprise cold meats facility in Germiston and the Rainbow Chicken polony factory in Sasolburg.

The companies immediately announced a nationwide recall of its cold meats.

The latest statement by RCL Foods does however not mean that the products coming from Sasolburg are safe to consume.

In its statement in early March, the Health Department announced health workers picked up another strain of the disease at the Sasolburg facility.

"Polony products have tested positive for L. monocytogenes, but the sequence types of the isolates are NOT ST6. However, such contamination of ready-to-eat processed meat products constitutes a health risk," the department said in a statement.

It added 10% of the tests at the Wolwehoek production facility tested positive for this strain.

While no further deaths have been recorded since March 8th, the NICD on Friday announced it would continue to closely monitor the situation.

It says more cases might be detected due "to the long incubation period of listeriosis (between consuming the contaminated food and developing illness) which is typically a few weeks but can be as long as 70 days".

As such, the NICD says some people who might have consumed contaminated products might not yet have developed the disease.