Food distributor Dip@msa denies supplying groceries to Dr. Eduardo Liaceaga Hospital, says it serves patients’ area

Two companies named in reporting on a suspected Salmonella outbreak at Mexico General Hospital have denied supplying the eggs believed by health authorities to be a possible source of infection.

Distribuidora de Alimentos Dip@msa México and Procesadora y Distribuidora Los Chaneques sent a letter to EL UNIVERSAL clarifying their role in the hospital’s food contracts. They said they are not responsible for distributing “groceries” under Part 1 of the contract, a category that includes eggs.

The companies said their joint participation is limited to supplying poultry and meat under Parts 2 and 3 of the contract. Those products go to the central cafeteria serving hospital patients, they said, rather than the cafeteria for medical staff, where the Salmonella outbreak occurred.

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It is necessary to clarify that both companies participate jointly exclusively to supply poultry and meat for the Central Cafeteria serving patients at the General Hospital, and not the cafeteria intended to provide food to the hospital's medical staff, where the Salmonella outbreak occurred.

The clarification followed a report that four companies supplied food to the hospital. Logística Alimentaria Maxfran won the contract for groceries, including eggs used in the cafeterias, as well as cold cuts, vegetables, fruit, dairy products and fish. That contract was worth 69,078,080 pesos. Dip@msa and Los Chaneques signed a separate 29,757,474-peso contract for poultry and meat.

Eduardo Clark García, undersecretary for sector integration and medical care coordination, said investigators currently suspect eggs consumed by resident doctors in one of the two cafeterias. He stressed that testing remained necessary before identifying the source of the outbreak.

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We currently suspect the hospital's eggs as the source of infection, if they were indeed the source, but that is our present presumption based on the case study.