# 1029
With enough weasel words (initial investigation, suggested, further tests needed to be done, etc. ) to cover them if they are later proved to be wrong, health officials are pointing their finger at a locally made soybean dish as the culprit in the deaths of 10 villagers over the past weeks.
Before falling ill the victims reportedly ate tempe gembus (fermented soybean pulp) which was apparently contaminated with Pseudomonas cocovenenans bacteria.
08/01/07 09:09
Indonesia says food poisoning behind mystery illness
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Initial investigations into a mystery illness that killed ten people in an Indonesian village have suggested that food poisoning was the cause rather than a contagious disease, the health minister said on Tuesday.
Victims of the illness in the Central Java village had eaten a locally made fermented soybean dish commonly sold door-to-door, Minister Siti Fadillah Supari was quoted by Reuters as telling a news conference.
Supari said victims showed signs of acute liver dysfunction, which had led to multiple organ failure in some cases.
"This is clearly a single-source incident. It is not an outbreak," she said.
Officials previously said the illness had spread fast through the village but did not appear to have any obvious infection pattern. Thirteen people are still undergoing treatment in hospitals in the provincial capital, Semarang.
I Nyoman Kandun, head of the health ministry's disease control unit, told the news conference that samples had tested positive for a type of bacteria.
"All samples tested positively for pseudomonas cocovenenans, drawing strong suspicions the illness was caused by the dish," the official said.
Research in the 1930s showed the same bacteria was found in coconut-based products that had repeatedly caused fatal food poisonings in Java before the products were banned by the Dutch colonial government at the time.
Supari said further tests needed to be done, particularly to look at possible poisoning by pesticide, arsenic, cyanide and other heavy metal substances also found in tissue samples sent to a Jakarta laboratory.
"But this is unlikely caused by industrial waste, since there are no plants in the area," the minister added.
Media reports on the illness said some locals believed they were targets of "black magic". Indonesia is predominantly Muslim, but mysticism is an integral part of local culture. (*)
A little research on the web yielded the following information about pseudomonas cocovenans.
Title : STUDIES ON THE TOXINS OF PSEUDOMONAS COCOVENENANS
Descriptive Note : Final technical rept., 1 Jan 1963-1 Jan 1964
Corporate Author : TECHNISCHE HOGESCHOOL DELFT (NETHERLANDS) BIOCHEMICAL AND BIOPHYSICAL LAB
Personal Author(s) : Berends, W. Report Date : 01 JAN 1964
Abstract : Fatal food poisonings have repeatedly occurred amongst the natives of the densely populated parts of Mid-Java in Indonesia. These were caused by the eating of coconut-products (bongkrek) that had been inoculated with moulds (Rhizopus oryzae). A study of the background of these poisonings was made round about 1930.
An extensive investigation brought to light the fact that sometimes a bacterium developed instead of the mould with which the defatted coconut was inoculated and this secreted a very active poison. This bongkrekic bacterium was identified as belonging to the genus Pseudomonas and it got the name Pseudomonas cocovenenans. The toxic compound, bongkrekic acid, was isolated from cultures of this microorganism on moist, defatted copra.
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