106 Salmonella Cases Linked to Flavoured Noodles in Europe

A salmonella outbreak linked to flavoured instant noodle products has sickened at least 106 people across 14 European countries, with nearly half requiring hospital treatment, according to reports from ABC News and the Associated Press.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) confirmed that the outbreak has hospitalised at least 49 people, many of them children and young adults. The agencies described the flavoured noodle products as “the most likely source of an ongoing multi-country outbreak of infections, with evidence linking the cases to items from the same brand”.

The salmonella Stanley strain has been linked to chicken-flavoured and hot-chicken-flavoured noodle products in Germany and Lithuania, with the outbreak traced to a producer in Ukraine. Reeva Foods confirmed that an internal investigation was launched after the “alleged detection” of Salmonella Stanley in a specific batch of its instant noodles.

Cases have been reported in Austria, Britain, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Sweden.

Salmonella symptoms include diarrhoea, fever, vomiting, dehydration, and stomach cramps. Most people recover within a week, but infections can be severe for young children, older adults, and those with weakened immune systems.