VILNIUS, July 18 (Xinhua) -- Lithuania's food safety authority ordered to withdraw from the country's market a significant amount of frozen vegetables that proved to be contaminated with health-threatening Listeria bacteria, an official from Lithuania's State Food and Veterinary Service (VMVT) said on Wednesday.
"Polish food safety authorities warned Lithuania and other countries that vegetable mixtures which included Listeria-contaminated corn were unsafe," Rita Sadunaite, senior specialist at VMVT Food department, was quoted as saying by local media.
In her words, the supplier of the product, Polish company Greenyard Frozen Poland, also informed its representative in Lithuania, Unilever Lietuva Distribucija company, that the product was unsafe.
"It is being removed from the market," Sadunaite added.
According to the information from VMVT, unsafe frozen vegetable mixtures were being supplied to Lithuania for nearly two years, since August 2016 through June this year. In 2018, 17,366 packages of the product were supplied to Lithuania. More than 3,000 packages that are still being stored will be destroyed, the authority said.
Lithuanian enterprises which acquired the unsafe product were warned about the danger and the production is being collected for decimation, Sadunaite said. Meanwhile, private consumers who bought the product and did not use it yet, are being urged to return it to the place of purchase or discard it.
According to the data from Lithuania's Center of Communicable Diseases and AIDS, no cases of Listeriosis infection were registered in the country in recent months.
Listeriosis is a serious infection caused by the germ Listeria monocytogenes. People usually become ill with listeriosis after eating contaminated food. The disease primarily affects pregnant women, newborns, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems.
