Saturday, November 9

The Litigated Dish: Incubation durations for foodborne infections

— COMMENTARY–

I believe I’ll speak about Salmonella in my next couple of posts. Wondering why? Well, I just recently found that the search volume– or the variety of regular monthly searches– for “Salmonella” is 9 times higher than that of “foodborne health problem.” The more you understand.

Of the 165,000 month-to-month Google searches associated to Salmonella, among the most regularly asked concerns is, “Are Salmonella signs instant?” A concern worth checking out.

Let me present you to an essential expression in my world– the world of food security: incubation duration. The incubation duration is the time it considers an individual to end up being ill (i.e., establish signs) after taking in a polluted foodstuff. Various pathogens have various incubation durations.

For Salmonella, the incubation duration usually varies from 12 to 36 hours, though it can be as brief as 6 hours or as long as a couple of weeks. This fairly brief incubation duration stands in contrast to Listeria, another germs, which has a very variable incubation duration covering from 3 to 70 days. Why I typically recommend my customers that what made them ill may not be the last thing they consumed before signs appeared; it is more most likely something they took in 12+ hours, or even a couple of days, earlier, unless it’s Staph food poisoning.

To provide you all a much better understanding of incubation durations, I’ve produced a useful table. I hope you discover it useful.

PathogenBacteria, infection, or parasite?Typical incubation periodBotulism (C. botulinum)Bacteria12 to 36 hoursCampylobacterBacteria2 to 5 daysCyclosporaParasite ~ 1 weekC. perfringensBacteria6 to 24 hoursEscherichia coli (E. coli)Bacteria3 to 4 daysHepatitis AVirus2 to 4 weeksListeriaBacteria3 to 70 daysNorovirusVirus12 to 48 hoursSalmonellaBacteria12 to 36 hoursShigellaBacteria1 to 2 daysStaphylococcus aureusBacteria30 minutes to 6 hoursVibrio spp.Bacteria1 to 3 days

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