Botulism

Do you always buy preserved food? I think many people in modern style to do the simple way to buy some food and preserved food is ones choices because it's easy to serve and cook but you have to pay attention look at the expire date, check the seal is broken or not and take preserved food with longer of the expire date to avoid foodborne that cause intoxication. Either intoxication or infection follows eating tinned or preserved food contaminated with Clostridium Botulinum spores, cases involved sausage, tinned salmon, hazelnut yoghurt and other food. Clostridium Botulinum cause illness called BOTULISM. There are seven recognized types of botulism. Four of these (types A, B, E and rarely F) cause human botulism. Types C, D and E cause illness in mammals, birds and fish.

Sign and Symptoms
The symptoms is appear within 12 to 36 hours (within a minimum and maximum range of four hours to eight days) after exposure. Initial symptoms may be mainly Gastrointestinal problem such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal discomfort, dryness of the mouth or neurological such as dizziness, blured vision, diplopia. Later problem include dysarthria, dysphagia, muscle weakness or paralysis, constipation and urinary retention, respiratory falure and sudden death. There is no fever and no loss of consciousness.

Prevention
To prevent from botulism you have to be good food preparation (particularly preservation) practices and hygiene, cook well done, because the botulism toxin able to destroyed by high temperatures, check the expire date of food product, do not use any food if the food was expired date already. Commercial heat pasteurization (vacuum packed pasteurized products, hot smoked products) may not be sufficient to kill all spores and therefore safety of these products must be based on preventing growth and toxin production. Keep it any preserved food in refrigerator. Refrigeration temperatures combined with salt content and/or acidic conditions will prevent the growth or formation of toxin. If exposure to the toxin via an aerosol is suspected, in order to prevent additional exposure to the patient and health care providers, the clothing of the patient must be removed and stored in plastic bags until it can be washed with soap and water.

Treatment
The respiratory failure and paralysis that occur with severe botulism may require a patient to be on a breathing machine (ventilator) for weeks, plus intensive medical and nursing care. After several weeks, the paralysis slowly improves. If diagnosed early, foodborne and wound botulism can be treated with an antitoxin which blocks the action of toxin circulating in the blood. This can prevent patients from worsening, but recovery still takes many weeks

Sources:

1. CDC
2. WHO