Philippines suspends scallops linked to Hawaii hepatitis A outbreak
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
The Department of Health showed a box of the Sea Port Bay Scallops, on Aug. 18, that tested positive for the hepatitis A virus.
MANILA » The Philippine government has suspended distribution of seafood believed to be the cause of a hepatitis A outbreak in Hawaii.
De Oro Resources Inc. must temporarily suspend distribution of its products, according to an order by the Philippines’ Department of Agriculture Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.
Hawaii’s Department of Health last month identified frozen scallops served raw at the restaurant chain Genki Sushi as the probable cause. The scallops are produced by De Oro Resources.
Andres Bojos, director of the agriculture bureau in the Central Visayas region, said officials required the company to test workers, including those who shuck scallops and those who work in their plant. All of them tested negative for hepatitis A, he said.
The Hawaii outbreak has sickened more than 250 people.
Bojos said today that De Oro Resources remains suspended pending completion of the audit they are doing. Aside from scallops, De Oro also exports shrimp.
“We required the operator to subject all their personnel involved in the supply chain from those who shuck the meat of scallops in Masbate to their people in their plant here in Cebu to medical tests, but all of them tested negative for hepatitis A,” Bojos said. He said those who were tested include around 100 personnel of De Oro in its plant in central Cebu province and 29 people who work in De Oro’s pre-processing plant in Masbate in the eastern Philippines, where the company gets some of its scallops.
But Bojos said a water sample from Masbate was found to have a high level of coliform bacteria, and scallops are not being sourced from that area for the meantime. He said there is also a possibility that the scallops were contaminated during the handling of the food in Hawaii. There are no known cases in the region of hepatitis A from scallops consumption, he added.
Four other companies in the region export scallops aside from De Oro Resources, said Grace Paguinang, a Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources inspector in Central Visayas. But the seasonal product is not a main export of those companies, whose bigger products are crabs and shrimp. There were no immediately available data on exports volume.
Messages left for De Oro Resources remain unanswered. The company had also not responded to previous requests for comment.
———
Associated Press writer Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this report.
11 responses to “Philippines suspends scallops linked to Hawaii hepatitis A outbreak”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Nice headline SA. The Philippines suspends scallops?
I know space is limited, but you can do better, please try.
It’s probably sewage in the water that is contaminating the scallops.
Duterte would eat it.
a month later they suspend distribution
It is very unlikely that the scallops were contaminated by handling here in Hawaii. Reason being that they were shipped here bagged and frozen.
The other thing is that besides the contaminated scallops which were consumed, there apparently were other scallops not eaten and still frozen and bagged which were
then tested and found contaminated so it makes it highly unlikely that the scallops were contaminated here in Hawaii.
And while the testing of workers at De Oro Resources in the PI showed no one to be ill with HepA, it probably does not include people no longer working for the company
or people that were hired on temporary basis that worked processing the scallops.
By the way, it seems that further reporting by DOH regarding any new HepA cases has fallen into a black hole.
How about a followup SA??
These are very astute observations and statements, well put. Except the last about SA reporting– because perhaps the reporting of new cases have dropped off because there has been less and less. Other news outlets, e.g. TV evening news, seem to be on the same level of reporting at this point on Hep A. Still, well said with the first portion of comments.
the fur is finally hitting the fan?
You mean the poo has hit the fan and landed on the scallops.
I stop buying anything from the Philippines. Too pilau over there. The place is like a sewer cesspool. And I doubt they tested everyone and that everyone had tested negative. That’s a lot of bs. Instead, they blame Hawaii for the way the scallops were handled. Hahaha! That’s a good one.
agreed.
Ha! I must be getting a little silly this time of day. I was just imagining, as an administrator, exactly how I would go about “suspending” a scallop. I imagine the paperwork and the computer entry would be strange to say the least.