(Moscow) More than 120 people have had to consult medical services in Moscow in recent days, 30 of whom are still in intensive care, after serious food poisoning with suspected botulism, municipal authorities announced on Monday.
Salads sold by a home delivery company have been withdrawn from sale after being criticized by the Health Surveillance Agency (Rospotrebnadzor).
“At present, 55 people are in serious condition, including 30 in intensive care” out of a total of 121 poisoned individuals “showing symptoms of poisoning and suspected botulism,” said Anastassia Rakova, deputy mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin.
“The lives of these patients are not threatened,” she said, quoted by Russian news agencies.
This poisoning is caused by the ingestion of botulinum toxins, present in contaminated food.
Rakova said that “the city of Moscow and the regional Ministry of Health have identified the main products that could be the cause of the food poisoning.”
“An epidemiological investigation is underway and the distribution of poor quality products has been suspended,” she added.
The home-cooked meal delivery company, which sells the salads in question, said in a statement that it had “already withdrawn the dish from sale and started checking the entire supply and production chain.” .
“We have also temporarily stopped the [mobile, editor’s note] application to check all products, even those that do not pose a problem,” she said.
According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, only 82 cases of botulism were confirmed in the European Economic Area (EEA) in 2021, the latest year for which data has been published.
