The Lowdown On Listeria

One in four people who get listeriosis dies, but while it’s serious it can be treated and prevented. Here’s what you need to know about this food-borne disease.

- Khatija Nxedlana

SHE’S still struggling to come to terms with what happened. How is it possible that her child could be dead? More than anything else Tanya Clack wants answers. In August last year her daughter Sonette was looking forward to starting a new chapter as she married a man she adored. But four months later she lay comatose in hospital.

On 1 December Sonette (34) was admitted to Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria with suspected meningitis. But a week later as she lay unconscious, tests revealed she actually had listeriosis, a food-borne disease. Tanya felt relieved – at last doctors knew what was wrong with Sonette and could start treating her.

She was delighted when a day later her daughter opened her eyes. But within moments her joy turned to horror.

“She regained consciousness and the next minute she was dead,” says Tanya, who’s now looking after Sonette’s two children, aged 10 and 16, from a previous relationship.

The Clacks aren’t the only family struggling to come to terms with losing a loved one to a disease that until now had never been on their radar. With more than 60 deaths and almost 750 confirmed cases countrywide, South Africa is in the grip of what the World Health Organisation (WHO) has officially declared the worst outbreak of listeriosis in recorded history.

It’s far more than just a nasty stomach bug – for those unlucky enough to contract it, the disease is potentially fatal. Around 25% of those who get it die, which makes it more dangerous than typhoid fever or even bubonic plague.