Weather and Health
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Food poisoning symptoms
Another scorcher of a day is forecast and bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli and staphylococcus just love it. These tiny organisms thrive and multiply in hot weather. Most grow at temperatures between 5°C and 60°C but are particularly active at the halfway mark. In this temperature range, the bacteria chew away on their piece of chicken, meat, fish, or any other food and leave their toxic excrement for you to eat. You may develop stomach cramps, diarrhoea or vomiting. Temperatures above 60°C kill bacteria, but their residues remain toxic.
The victims often don’t report mild cases of food poisoning, and if they do the doctor may attribute the symptoms to some other disease. The true number of food poisoning victims, therefore, can only be estimated.
US government officials believe that between 24 and 81 million cases of diarrhea
occur every year as a result of food-
In the UK, some 2 million people suffer from food poisoning every year, where hot spells result in a massive increase in food poisoning incidents: every degree the temperature goes up, the incidents rise by 7%.
The future doesn’t look good either. The Centre for Social and Economic Research in the UK predicts an additional 179,000 cases of food poisoning by the year 2050 if global warming takes its expected effect.
While death as a direct result of food poisoning is rare, the combination of its
symptoms with other factors such as heat-
The cook is often the first person to take the wrath of a diarrhoea-
The weather is only indirectly to blame for an outbreak. Food providers will have to take in consideration a forecasted hot spell and adjust their food handling practices accordingly.