Gran’s ‘tummy bug’ actually fatal listeriosis

[caption id="attachment_241318" align="aligncenter" width="475"] Glenda Warmback
Picture: Supplied[/caption]

Disease claimed unlikely victim within days of first symptoms and left another in frail care

“The listeriosis has left me very shaky and I’ve had several falls. I have no balance anymore,” she said.

• Listeriosis symptoms are flu-like at first – fever‚ muscle aches‚ diarrhoea – and when the bacterium gets into the nervous system‚ they become meningitislike‚ including severe headache‚ sore neck‚ convulsions‚ confusion and loss of balance.
• A total of 948 cases have been confirmed since January last year‚ with 180 of those having died‚ about 40% of them babies less than four weeks old.

Most cases in this outbreak have been reported from Gauteng (59%), Western Cape (12%) and KwaZulu-Natal (7%); 65% of them in state hospitals and 35% in private hospitals. – TimesLIVE