East London's Sundale Dairy has moved to clarify reports regarding an earlier statement about listeriosis and dairy products.
This week the Eastern Cape Health Department reportedly suggested that dairy products could be the cause of an outbreak of listeriosis.
Department spokesperson, Sizwe Kupelo, said, following a Department probe, that so far, dairy products are suspected due to positive results taken from butcheries as well as farms around Berlin.
Speaking to Algoa FM News, Sundale Dairy CEO, Pierre van Rensburg, urged the public to take precautions and to avoid raw dairy products.
He further advised consumers to only buy pasteurized dairy products that have been refrigerated.
"The use and sale of unpasteurized, unsafe milk in the Eastern Cape area, is out of control and needs to be brought into control. At Sundale, our products are safe and made in a controlled environment. Unpasteurized is basically a product that comes straight out of the cow and in a lot of cases it is just put into a bottle, in a lot of cases that bottle is uncontrolled and then sold in the market, and that is unsafe" he said.
Eastern Cape Health Department spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo, says they have sent environmental health practitioners to conduct inspections at supermarkets and retailers to trace products that could be contaminated.
"We dismiss claims that (Listeriosis) this has spread to BCM. The numbers are still at 34 from last year. Only two cases were identified this year. We continue to monitor the situation" he said.
