The Min­istry of Health (MoH), via the Chem­istry Food and Drugs Di­vi­sion (CFDD), has is­sued an ad­vi­so­ry con­cern­ing the vol­un­tary re­call of spec­i­fied batch­es of Sim­i­lac, Al­i­men­tum and Ele­care Pow­der For­mu­la from Ab­bottt Nu­tri­tion, an in­ter­na­tion­al man­u­fac­tur­er of ba­by for­mu­las.

“Al­though Trinidad and To­ba­go was not in­clud­ed in the Unit­ed States Food and Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion’s (USF­DA) re­call no­ti­fi­ca­tion ad­vi­so­ry, which lists the coun­tries where the re­called prod­ucts were im­port­ed,” the Min­istry ex­plained, “the Min­istry of Health en­gaged the lo­cal dis­trib­u­tor to con­duct a rec­on­cil­i­a­tion ex­er­cise (in­clud­ing phys­i­cal stock check and re­view of im­por­ta­tion in­voic­es). This was done in recog­ni­tion of the com­plex­i­ty of the sup­ply chain man­age­ment for such items.”

Aris­ing out of this ex­er­cise, the Min­istry was in­formed to­day (20th Feb­ru­ary, 2022) that a lim­it­ed quan­ti­ty of the re­called items were iden­ti­fied in the lo­cal sup­ply. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the lo­cal dis­trib­u­tor has al­so re­ceived sub­se­quent doc­u­men­ta­tion from Ab­bott Nu­tri­tion to­day, which ad­vis­es of the batch num­ber of any of the re­called prod­ucts which may have en­tered the do­mes­tic mar­ket.

Locations of Lot Numbers and Expiry Dates on product packaging. (Image courtesy Ministry of Health)

As a re­sult, the CFDD ad­vis­es per­sons who may be in pos­ses­sion of any of the re­called for­mu­las, with the batch num­bers list­ed be­low, to dis­con­tin­ue use im­me­di­ate­ly and re­turn the prod­uct to the point of pur­chase, where pos­si­ble.

The re­call was ini­ti­at­ed due to the re­ceipt of four con­sumer com­plaints of Cronobac­ter sakaza­kii or Sal­mo­nel­la New­port (in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca) in in­fants who had con­sumed pow­der in­fant for­mu­la man­u­fac­tured at the Stur­gis, Michi­gan (USA) fa­cil­i­ty. This is an ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion which is cur­rent­ly be­ing con­duct­ed by USF­DA and CDC and, as such, not yet com­plet­ed.

Locations of Lot Numbers and Expiry Dates on product packaging. (Image courtesy Ministry of Health)

The Health Min­istry states that it should be not­ed that the lo­cal dis­trib­u­tor has ad­vised that “no prod­ucts dis­trib­uted have test­ed pos­i­tive for Cronobac­ter sakaza­kii or Sal­mo­nel­la New­port and the ac­tions tak­en as sole­ly as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure.”

Ear­ly symp­toms of Cronobac­ter sakaza­kii in­fec­tion may in­clude, amongst oth­ers:

●   Fever;

●   Poor feed­ing;

●   Ir­ri­tabil­i­ty;

●   Fa­tigue/lethar­gy.

“If your child is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing any of the symp­toms list­ed above then you should no­ti­fy your child’s health­care provider and seek med­ical care for your child im­me­di­ate­ly,” the Min­istry urges.

The Min­istry says the pub­lic will be no­ti­fied of any new crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion.  For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, the pub­lic may con­tact the Chem­istry Food and Drugs Di­vi­sion at 868-623-5242 or cfdd@health.gov.tt