By ANNE BESTON
Cafe-goers should not eat food that may have come into contact with sparrows, say Auckland health officials.
Dead birds in the city are being tested for an unusual strain of salmonella that has killed a Christchurch man and made other people ill.
Department of Conservation spokesman Ian Bradley said Auckland
staff were testing sparrows for the disease after receiving calls from the public.
The salmonella 160 strain is being blamed for a rise in the number of sparrow deaths in Christchurch.
However, only one bird has so far tested positive for the disease.
Kathy Pritchard, Auckland Healthcare's food and communicable diseases manager, said consumers should follow basic hygiene rules.
"Birds shouldn't be in food premises anyway but basically people should just follow good food safety rules," she said.
In the past two months, 37 people and a variety of animals and birds have tested positive for the disease.
It has been linked to another five cases in Southland, three in South Canterbury, two in Wellington and one case each in Manawatu and on the West Coast.
In humans, salmonella is fatal only in children, the elderly or those with weakened immune systems.
Symptoms include diarrhoea and vomiting.
DoC officer Geoff Hicks said concern was growing that the disease would spread to endangered species such as kiwi. "A number of waxeyes have now been found dead, so clearly, our biggest concern is that it will be picked up by indigenous birds."
Mr Hicks hoped that the infection would peter out before that happened.
