Listeria Outbreak – What You Need to Know NOW!

[Music] hi there today we're going to be talking about the Hot Topic of leria we've been hearing about an outbreak related to some lunch meat so let's talk about it what it causes and what we can do to help prevent ourselves from getting it leria monocytogenes is a bacteria that's frequently found in soil animal feces rotting vegetables or other Greenery and in contaminated water sources in most cases it doesn't infect what we would consider to be immunocompetent adults or children the people who are at risk from leria infection are the people who we would normally expect to be at higher risk people with suppressed immune systems on immunosuppressive drugs maybe for an autoimmune condition those who are frail or elderly and pregnant mothers not themselves as much as the fetus that they're carrying and in those cases can cause pre-term labor low birth weight or even miscarriage in the most serious cases leria is a pretty hearty bacteria meaning that it can live for a while on surfaces especially surfaces where meats or other things are cut um meat slicers for instance or things that slice vegetables and then they're packaged it can also live in the refrigerator in a cool and moist envir environment and so just keeping something cold doesn't keep us safe