Fifteen people recently fell sick in Hong Kong after eating vanilla-flavored ice cream in restaurants. The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) of the Department of Health said the incident involved three restaurants in the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong hotel: Grand Café, Grissini, and One Harbour Road. There are nine males and six females aged between 3 and 42.
At least six are children. They all ate vanilla ice cream in the hotel in early June. They developed abdominal pain, fever, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea about 15 to 65 hours after consuming the implicated food.
Four of them required hospitalization and were discharged after treatment. All patients are in stable condition. Stool specimens of six affected people were positive for Salmonella upon laboratory testing.
Four Salmonella isolates belong to the same group of Salmonella Enteritidis. The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) and the Environmental Hygiene Branch of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) inspected the premises and ice cream production kitchen. Production and sale of implicated food were suspended, and cleaning and disinfection were carried out.
So far, no Salmonella has been found in ice cream, vanilla oil, environmental samples, or staff stool samples. FEHD will review the investigation and initiate prosecution against the site if there is sufficient evidence. Other outbreaks In another incident, CHP is investigating an outbreak that has sickened nine people linked to a restaurant located in The Ki.
