Weevils confirmed as culprits in porridge bug scare

| 06/03/2017 | 38 Comments

(CNS) Updated: The Department of Environmental Health has finished its investigation into contaminated porridge at the hospital this weekend, which the department began after a patient found bugs in their breakfast Saturday, and found that they were weevils. They were, as  suspected, confined to a single box of Cream of Wheat delivered by a local vendor and the DEH said there was no infestations in the hospital kitchen, which was given a clean bill of health. The porridge was well within its sell-by date and the health inspector noted that cereals often have insect eggs that can sometimes hatch.

The DEH issued a final report Monday evening to the medical officer of health at the hospital (posted below) detailing where the weevils were found and what precautions were being taken to prevent this type of bug making its way into patients’ porridge in the future.

The source of the weevils was traced to a delivery last week of the Cream of Wheat box, which had an expiry date of 20 December 2017. The investigation confirmed the presence of what appeared to be the larva of a weevil in two of 48 portions of the porridge.

“Inspection of the contaminated meal revealed that there were two of what appeared to be weevil larva,” the inspector stated. “Generally, most cereal contains insect eggs when harvested from the field and in rare situations, these eggs can hatch in sealed boxes or packages of cereal.”

He added, “There was no evidence of maggots in the sample or in any part of the kitchen at the hospital.”

See the full report here

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Tags: ,

Category: Environmental Health, Health, Medical Health

Comments (38)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. EEbanks says:

    There’s (sterilized) puss in every gallon of milk, rat droppings/hair in every loaf of bread and people eat pigs, cows, chickens, and sheep. Those little critters that sometime infect all sorts of grains is probably the cleanest animal protein we get. 🙂

  2. Anonymous says:

    That picture is not oats, that’s cornmeal.

  3. Anonymous says:

    Is this the “Advanced Healthcare” now offered on your island.?.? And, are we sure they’re talking about a hospital and not the prison? Porridge?? What’s for lunch, Crackers & Water?

  4. Fedup Caymanian says:

    Realistically speaking that whole hospital needs a thorough cleansing. On a serious note it needs to be dethroned. Frankly speaking from what I have experience. The Jamaican staff there are very rude and inconsiderate. The only staff that are respectful to you are our own Caymanians passing you by with warm friendly faces. The Expat nurses there have no sense of knowledge and is very unprofessional. If you take in sick with chest pains they will send you home and say it is gas and in that duration of time wasted you will probably die from a heartattack! I have wittness this with my own eyes. Also considering the fact the many numerous malpractice that have occurred there over the years and misdiagnosis.

    It is within my knowledge that we as Caymanians have lost someone very dear to us under these circumstances that could had been avoided. I can recalled a few years back when I had the flu…I came there to this same hospital the same time they ran a lot of test and told me that I also had broncritis. They then put me on drips and kept surveillance on me and when I saw the nurse with a huge horse needle to give to me I said hold up what’s that for? She said it is to help you with your migraines. I said nurse I don’t have no migraines she then look at her chart and said sorry wrong patient. As soon as she left out I quickly pull those drips off me and got the hell out of there and I went home and did my own herbal remedies for the flu.

    Sadly. It is always negligence like this on their behalf and we as a people need to step up, put our foot down and say enough is enough! We cannot let this continue any longer. To the Minister of health something has to be done step up! Anyway. I made my peace have a nice day!

  5. Anonymous says:

    money hunt!

    • anonymous says:

      Honestly, as a poster noted these eggs come in our goods from the supermarkets every week. I noted that we should freeze for 24 hours so they don’t hatch — this is the best we can hope for.

      I think it is definitely a slow news day!

  6. Anonymous says:

    Well now we know where to go to get sick…

  7. Diogenes says:

    I am more concerned at the pictures of the rest of the breakfast than the weevils.

  8. Anonymous says:

    They could always issue patients with head phones and blindfolds. That way, hear no weevil… see no weevil…

  9. Unison says:

    The G.T. Hospital isn’t being managed well. From wrong perscriptions to mis-diagnosing people …. a long list of complaints … life and death instances, and it seems that there is no serious revamp or change from our government.

    :/

  10. Beaumont Zodecloun says:

    Here is the thing: Weevils don’t FIND grains, their eggs are a by-product of grain production — they are shipped with flour, pasta, cereals, rice, corn meal, etc. GRAINS. To prevent them from hatching, freeze all of your dry goods for at least 24 hours. That’s it. The eggs expand and burst and they will never grow weevils.

    We can’t separate the eggs from the grain products, but we can render them inert. Bags larger than 5-lb. require being frozen for more than 48 hours.

    • Anonymous says:

      Does this mean as a vegan I can no longer eat rice and other grains and pasta as they are contaminated with weevil egg product?? Next you are going to tell me there is snail slime on my lettuce… arrrrggghhh. What can I eat? Cardboard? Or are the papermites in that tooo… and the grass has other animal product on it. Help!!!

      • Beaumont Zodecloun says:

        😀 I don’t know what to tell you. Perhaps you can remain true to your food culture by considering it a matter of ratio; I would guess less than .00027 percent animal by-products per cup capita of rice, grain and pasta.

        I would guess that fresh produce, while containing much less animal products, still would test out as a measurable level, even after washing it.

        You’re remaining true to your ideals. Good enough, yeah?

  11. Anonymous says:

    Blame it on the Quakers!

  12. Anonymous says:

    Must admit I am wondering what the cook was doing when she was dishing up to not realise.

  13. Anon says:

    Surprised to see everyone so chilled about it in the comments.

  14. Anonymous says:

    Why is this even news? lol

  15. Anonymous says:

    Them people on naked and afraid stay alive eating bugs lol… Sorry a little humor never hurt anyone.. This was not life threatening and things could be alot more serious to complain about. sorry

    • Anonymous says:

      you eat em

      • Anonymous says:

        No problem.. just scoop them one side.. I come from a poor family that had to blow the ants out of sugar and sleep on the floor! I can survive lol. Too much nose turned up high and proudness going on. If it was a cockroach then its legit problem, but a weevil… come on people, give this a break nah! Investigate what kind of ‘nastiness’ is in your fastfood!

  16. Veritas says:

    Has Trump got anything to do with this?.

  17. Anonymous says:

    Protein

  18. Anonymous says:

    It happens-happened to some pasta in my house…get used to it, we eat bug lavae every day and non of us have died yet. Personally I would have fired up the worms as a tasty little side snack, plenty of nutrition in them…

    • Anonymous says:

      A big todo about nothing. I have found weevils in rice, oatmeal, pasta, cornmeal, flour etc. good source of protein if you ask me. However it should have been observed before the porridge was served to the patients. The person who made the porridge should have seen the little critters in the pot and discarded it.

    • Anonymous says:

      Oh please, in some places in the world fried up worms, crickets ants etc are served up as delicacies. Good source of protein.

  19. rollin says:

    russian weevils

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.