An Idaho restaurant was reportedly shut down by local health officials on Thursday due to ongoing health code violations and its suspected connection with a recent foodborne illness outbreak.
Pho Tam, a Vietnamese restaurant located at 1098 N. Orchard St. in Boise, has been linked to a recent Salmonella Schwarzengrund outbreak that has sickened at least five people. The source of the bacteria has not yet been identified.
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-vietnamese-pho-soup-image24578684According to a local TV report, inspectors from the Central District Health Department found four health code violations at Pho Tam on Thursday, including two which were repeat violations.
Officials had met with the restaurant owner on Tuesday to work on food safety education involving storage and preparation issues. Their reasons for pulling Pho Tam’s license two days later were not entirely clear, and efforts by Food Safety News to contact health department sources were unsuccessful Thursday night.
The latest inspection report for Pho Tam was not immediately available, although inspection reports from 2011-2014 indicated previous violations related to physical and hand-washing facilities, as well as food contact surfaces, thermometers and food segregation. While some of the previously cited violations were considered “critical,” the restaurant had apparently fixed them since followup inspections days later showed that no violations were found.
Before the shutdown, Pho Tam owner Long-T-Doan told a Boise newspaper that she didn’t know what had happened to cause the outbreak.
“We try to be careful,” she said.
The restaurant’s management now has 15 days to change operations in order to meet local health codes.
The first Salmonella case related to this outbreak was reported in late February and the most recent one was reported this past Thursday, Christine Myron, the department’s public information officer, told Food Safety News for an April 2 story on the outbreak.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), people infected with Salmonella bacteria develop diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps between 12 and 72 hours after infection. The illness usually lasts 4 to 7 days, and most individuals recover without treatment.
In some cases, however, diarrhea may be so severe that the patient needs to be hospitalized. In these patients, theSalmonella infection may spread from the intestines to the bloodstream and then to other body sites. In these cases, Salmonella can cause death unless the person is treated promptly with antibiotics. The elderly, infants, and those with impaired immune systems are more likely to have a severe illness.
Salmonella bacteria are commonly found in raw or undercooked foods such as eggs, egg products, meat, meat products, unpasteurized (raw) milk, or other unpasteurized dairy products such as cheese. Thorough cooking and processing will effectively kill Salmonella bacteria.
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