Severe food poisoning: two butcher shops temporarily closed after child's death

Two butcher shops in Saint-Quentin (Aisne) have been closed as a precaution as part of investigations into the cause of severe food poisoning in children , which cost the life of one of them, the Aisne prefecture announced in a press release on Friday, June 20.

"The sick children consumed meat or meat products from two establishments a few days before the symptoms appeared," the prefecture explained.

Although it is "not possible to confirm at this stage that the consumption of products from these two establishments is the cause of the contamination", the two butcher shops have been closed as a precaution, pending the results of analyses of samples taken from these businesses.

These results "should be known at the beginning of next week," according to the prefecture. The samples were sent to the national reference laboratory in Marcy-l'Étoile in the Rhône department, and "an investigation into the traceability of the meat used in these two establishments" has been launched.

As a further precaution, the prefecture is also asking people not to consume meat purchased from these two establishments. Since June 12, eight cases of severe food poisoning among children in the Saint-Quentin area have been reported. Five of these children developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) , including a 12-year-old girl, who died.

A rare infectious disease, "most often foodborne," HUS occurs in most cases as a complication of poisoning by a bacterium from the Escherichia coli (E. coli) family. It affects 100 to 165 children in France each year, according to Public Health France.