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01. 03. 10. - 11:00

System failure caused listeria contamination of cheese, admits firm

Failure in warning and control systems was the cause of listeria contamination of eight brands of its Quargel cheese, Styrian dairy firm Prolactal said yesterday (Sun).

Ten people in Austria and Germany died in 2009 and 2010 after eating the deadly cheese.

The firm said a scarab or type of beetle (Dungkäfer or aphodius fimetarius") had been the carrier of the disease.

Beetles had climbed through a window left open and contaminated machines used to make the cheese.

In response to the firm’s announcement, Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) official Gerald Grosz charged that the firm was "neither reliable nor trustworthy."

He added that Social Democratic (SPÖ) Health Minister Alois Stöger been "negligent" in allowing the firm to take the lead in crisis management.

Ingrid Korosec, the deputy leader of the People’s Party’s (ÖVP) pensioners organisation, demanded Stöger provide immediate clarification of the case and that those responsible be made to accept the consequences.

Twelve people were hospitalised with listeria infections last week, nine of them becoming ill after eating deadly the Quargel cheese produced by Styrian firm Prolactal GmbH.

The Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES) said: "The date of infection in all cases was before the recall of the cheese on 24 January."

The agency added that there had been nine confirmed cases of listeria infections with one death caused by the cheese this year. There were 12 confirmed cases and four deaths in 2009. There were also 33 non-cheese related listeria cases last year, it said.

Prolactal hit the headlines after it recalled eight brands of its Quargel cheese containing deadly listeria bacteria that killed six people in Germany and Austria.

It was back in the spotlight recently after it emerged the firm had been given more than three-quarters of a million Euros in refunds on exports.

The Austrian Communist Party (KPÖ) reported that the firm had received an EU export refund of 759,000 Euros in 2007. It said the figure had come from the EU’s transparent data bank.

Styrian KPÖ provincial deputy Claudia Klimt-Weithaler called the refund "a subsidy for brand swindling" that showed how "absurd" EU agriculture policy was. She claimed the refund had simply increased pressure from cheap competition on Styrian dairy farmers.

EU export refunds are available to Austrian firms selling high-priced food products and drinks in countries outside the European Union, where prices are lower.

Graz public prosecutor’s office announced the week before last that it would investigate the deadly Prolactal cheese case.

Consumption of food with excessive concentrations of listeria can lead to meningitis, encephalitis and blood-poisoning.

Austrian Times

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