UK salmonella cases nearing 500 as egg investigations continue

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Get more with BBC Podcasts wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favourite shows like Evil Genius, Good Bad Billionaire and You're Dead to Me with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon Music subscription. Hello there, I'm Sean Lay. Thanks very much for downloading the BBC's World Tonight podcast from Thursday the 27th of August. We have the first on-the-ground dispatch from the BBC's Nepali service on the rescue operation as anxious relatives in the UK wait for news of loved ones who are among the 1 ,000 people missing.

0:44Here, with two people confirmed dead and nearly 500 cases of salmonella poisoning from eggs, a farmer in East Anglia tells me he's furious. public health experts have failed to trace the source of what's thought to be an imported infection. Two days after the CIA director flew to Moscow, President Trump declares himself satisfied that Russia won't attack any NATO territory. A former American ambassador to the organisation tells me why she doesn't share his confidence. We'll hear about the Spanish budget fashion chain bringing high tech to the high street in surprising ways and it's hard cheese for traditionalists, such France, eases the strict rules for production of some of its best-known cheeses because of the drought.

1:29The cases of salmonella infection from eggs have risen in this country to 474, and two people are now known to have died after a health security agency identified two new clusters of infection. Some of the cases date back a year, but all involve of almost genetically identical bacteria. That suggests a common food source. Investigations so far suggest people have fallen sick after eating out rather than cooking eggs at home. More than one-third of those 474 cases have led to hospitalisation. Let's talk now to the BBC's health editor, Hugh Pym. Hugh, this is starting to sound very serious. Well, certainly, Sean, officials are saying it is concerning at the rapid rate of increase.

2:15Just to be clear about the timeline here, last week UKHSA told us there were 207 cases and one death. Now they've identified two further clusters of a similar salmonella strain with a few slight differences, but they're treating them all really as one large outbreak and there are now 474 cases and two deaths. Now all of the clusters have cases dating back a while, but they've seen an increase, all of them, since June. and it's being identified as linked to imported eggs, almost certainly, and there has been an outbreak in the Netherlands of a similar strain and one in Belgium as well and other European countries.

2:56So certainly a concern for officials, though with a very firm reminder that this is not linked to British-produced eggs. Yeah, indeed, and we'll hear in a moment from a British egg producer in East Anglia on exactly the differences and what is done here that may not necessarily be done in some other countries. It's important, isn't it, as I said in the introduction, to make it clear that some of these cases date back quite a long time. Why are they being counted as it were now? Well, it's down to the detective work, genomic sequencing, that's worked out that all of them are from a similar salmonella strain.

3:35Therefore, I mean, it's to do with the import of eggs may be going back a little while. So the fact that they've linked all of them means that they're pretty convinced that the source is eggs coming from another country. Now, they don't know where that is. They haven't said. They're trying very quickly to ascertain what the source of it is. They're saying that it's eggs which are associated with eating out in the UK, imported eggs, some of them with salmonella, small independent cafes, restaurants and takeaways. And the advice is to those who may be vulnerable, older adults, younger children, those with health conditions, pregnant women, is to be very careful eating out to ensure eggs are well cooked and not runny or underdone.

4:25Are they able to explain so far why they haven't been able to trace exactly the source? Well, I think it's the nature of international trade, the import of eggs, the extent to which it exists is hard to pin down, coming through different routes into the UK, then they go to distributors, and then out to restaurants and cafes. And if they're small, independent cafes and restaurants, it's difficult picking up who's bought what from which distributor. So I think it's a pretty complex task. But the Food Standards Agency working with the UK HSA is working very hard to try to work out where salmonella has come from into the UK in imported eggs.

5:10Hugh Pym, our health editor, thank you very much. Egg consumption in the UK has grown with 14.5 billion eaten in 2025, a 5 % increase on the previous year. 78 % of them now come from free-range chickens. Although we export some of our eggs, we import 2 billion to meet our own appetite. Alistair Bryce of Havensfield Eggs will be up at 4.30 in the morning. You can understand why he didn't want to do an interview live with us. His eggs come from family farms in Norfolk and Suffolk. But on the line, and I apologise for the quality of the line, he's in the middle of nowhere, so the signal is a bit patchy.

5:46But on the line, he told me that imported eggs are not subject to the same stringent regulations he has to follow. Our whole industry has changed. Literally in 30 years, we've gone from being large producers of a colony caged egg, and we've switched and flipped that over to free-range eggs because that's what the consumer has driven in terms of demand. the problem we have is is that in the last few years we've come across problems be it avian flu which has interrupted supply not only in the uk but domestically across the rest of europe and and worldwide some countries have had shortages of eggs at times when they wouldn't normally necessarily have those shortages and imports have filled that gap the other problem we've got is the cost of living is going up some people ask their preference buy free range in reality they can't afford it anymore and so they're looking at a more budget lower welfare area to feed their families and i perfectly understand that but you know as an industry we are governed and policed by apha environmental health defra we have our own egg police government-run force they're called egg marketing inspectorates they're the legal force which make us comply and check through on-front testing and they can turn up at any farm at any time without prior arrangements, stock checks and the same at packing stations and they're checking for labelling, traceability, dates, quality, all those things that protect you as the consumer.

7:17And that presumably is why they've been able to rule out so quickly that the salmon emulator came from eggs produced in this country. Absolutely and that shows the system works. What we do in terms of compliance and food safety works. What then is it that you do and are required to do as British producers of eggs that maybe some of these importers or some of the suppliers of imported eggs are not required to do? We've got a rigorous testing scheme for salmonella. It's law. It's standard. It covers all commercial producers in the UK. And if you don't comply with it, you potentially could go to prison.

7:56all commercial flocks in the uk are vaccinated then every 15 weeks the birds are routinely tested samples of eggs will also be taken away for testing we have independent inspections that come in and they can just walk in they have the law on their side now to say okay we're closing you down when we were in the european union a lot of our trading partners within europe had a synergy between what they did in their country and what we did in ours although their production systems and law and legislation within those countries weren't as strict as ours. They still had protocols in place which ensured those eggs were safe and there was trade agreements in place.

8:36Unfortunately, now we're not in the EU and we're actually bringing eggs in that are from non-EU countries, the likes of Ukraine and Turkey and such like. Those countries are way behind the curve in terms of food safety, traceability and all the things that are the base make-up, what we've been doing here for the last 40 years. Am I right in saying that about a third of eggs that are imported come from Ukraine right now? There is a goodwill gesture from the British government to the Ukraine in their hour of need to allow concessions of non-free trade, where there seems to be a huge influx of Ukrainian egg coming into the UK marketplace.

9:16Now, no one knows, as I have to stress again, where this is coming from. We know it's not coming from British eggs. We don't know what the foreign source is of this salmonella. And the UK Health Security Agency would say, look, we keep saying that to people. We keep saying it's not British eggs. So what is it you're not hearing that you need to hear? Or who is it you're not hearing from who you think needs to speak out and say this? We've got a minister involved within DEFRA who has not really come to the table with this because ultimately they are responsible for keeping British people safe. People have died.

9:50We still don't know where it's coming from. At the moment, I don't have any confidence from what we understand in terms of the facts that they're any further forward than they were 14 months ago. And that was Alistair Bryce there of Havensfield Eggs. Coming up later on The World Tonight, the author whose bestseller will be given to all year six children this Christmas tells us about the appeal of fantasy. We have been turning to fantasy to think about large ideas and to go on large adventures for thousands of years. You can trace our desire to think about mythical creatures and impossible happenings all the way back to the Odyssey.

10:31I think there is something in it that captures our sense of the world as full of impossible things. Stay with us for Catherine Rundell. Both China and Nepal now say a glacier collapse, not an earthquake, triggered the flash floods which engulfed whole communities on the border between Nepal and the China-controlled territory of Tibet. At least 389 people have been confirmed dead, but more than 900 remain missing. Well, the Chinese authorities say they're worried that some 3 million cubic metres of water, that's roughly equivalent to the water in 1 ,200 Olympic-sized swimming pools, will flow into an already dammed lake over the next three days, and it could flood again.

11:10Meanwhile, rescue operations continue in some of the worst affected regions, like Rasawa and Nuwakut district, from where BBC Nepali's Panindra Dahal reports. Here in Trishuli, this area has become a staging post for the Nepal army. A rescue effort is underway, bringing people out of the devastated nearby areas, with dozens of helicopters flying in and arriving back every hour. The rescue effort here covers the Rasawa and Nuwakut districts, which have been devastated by the flash floods. This man was lucky to survive. I was caught by the waves three times, pushing and pulling. Eventually I was thrown out of the water and I survived.

11:58Hundreds of people have gathered here quietly, waiting to learn whether their missing relatives have been found. The flood yesterday destroyed my house and we are now displaced. My father is safe, but my mother is out of contact. I want to see my mother, either alive or her body. Access to this area is challenging and severely limited. Entire roads and bridges were swept away in the disaster. Rasuwa is physically totally disconnected. Rasuwa is physically totally disconnected. We have not been able to get there. It will take time for us to assess the scale of the damage. Only by helicopter have we been able to rescue people from there alive.

12:48Grief and hope sit side by side here in Trisuli. Many still pray that their relatives will be found safe. But as time goes on, that hope is beginning to fade. Panindra Dahal, among the missing of the family of Baron Lamichanea. He's originally from the village of Betroir, but now lives in Aberdeen. He told BBC Scotland news that he fears his uncle, brother and cousin were all killed in the flash flooding. I'm just sleeping and my sister wakes me up and says, in our village there is nothing left, everything is gone. I'm just blank, I can't even think. Our home, everything is gone, nothing is left here.

13:32that flood took all the pole all the electricity all everything there is nothing nothing left here baron's mother father and grandmother have survived he says they're now shouting a school which is providing refuge and he told bbc scotland how they fled for their lives they are just escaped from the flood just crawling like a baby yeah i don't know how many my friends home, main friends, relatives, neighbours, they're all gone. They're all took by the Florida. It's so hard when I see the Insta or something, social media, and seeing my village, my everything. Marin at Lamechani, waiting for more news from Nepal.

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14:37Tuesday's unannounced visit by CIA Director John Ratcliffe to Moscow sparked unease among America's NATO allies. Was this a back channel for further talks about the war in Ukraine or were there other reasons for his visit? One area of diplomatic speculation in recent weeks is whether Russia, frustrated in Ukraine, might seek to open a second front in the Baltic states. Such an incident would test whether Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, which interprets an attack on one member country as an attack on all, would be honoured, especially by the current administration in Washington. Well, tonight, President Trump gave this answer to reporters about Russian President Vladimir Putin's intentions.

15:17I've had good talks. He's not going to be attacking a NATO territory. So what was the reason for CIA Director John Ratcliffe's visit to Moscow this week? A question I put to our security correspondent, Frank Gardner. Well, whatever it was, was certainly not routine, semi-routine, quasi-routine, or whatever else the President of the United States classifies it as. This was very unusual, and it was important enough for him to go in this electronically sealed capsule, the conference capsule that was inside the C-17 so he could communicate securely with the president and anybody else from inside the plane.

15:54There is a range of things that he could have discussed. As far as we know, the only significant person that he met was Sergei Norishkin, who is the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, his opposite number in Russia, the SVR. And there are a number of possibilities. One is that he was trying to wean Russia away from supporting Iran militarily. Because remember that the war that President Trump is more involved in than anywhere else is the one with Iran. He's kind of given up on the Ukraine one. You know, having said he would, if he became president, he would solve that war in one day. He's failed to do it, partly because he's sent two intermediaries, mediators as they were, Whitcoff and Jared Kushner, who have never bothered to go to Ukraine.

16:42They've gone to Russia, but not to Ukraine. So Politico and a number of other media outlets have speculated that he went there to bring a warning along the lines of US has picked up intelligence that Russia is planning to make a move against a NATO country, probably a Baltic one, Lithuania, Latvia, or Estonia. And so don't do it, because there will be a doubt in Putin's mind about whether under Donald Trump, the US is prepared to support Article 5 of the NATO treaty. In other words, if there was a small incursion into, say, Estonia, not a huge one, but just a little one, a kind of probing attack, would it really bring the wrath of the United States on?

17:24And I think John Ratcliffe, who is a Russia hawk, probably delivered quite a strong message. The UK has experienced Russia harassment in the air, underwater and with cyber attacks. Do you think the British government will have been concerned by this CIA visit? Well, the US and Britain have the closest intelligence relationship of any two countries in the world. They share a huge amount. the relationship between Britain's secret intelligence service, MI6, and the CIA is a very close one. It's managed to survive the vicissitudes, the ups and downs of two Trump administrations. I mean, every time I meet these people, which is not that often, but I always put it to senior people in intelligence.

18:07How are you managing, you know, given that Donald Trump likes to turn the table upside down and criticize NATO and be nice and soft and cuddly about leaders like Kim Jong-un in North Korea or Vladimir Putin, people who the rest of the West considers to be basically enemies. So how do you manage that? And I'm always told, look, at the working level, we get on fine. You know, it's business as usual. There isn't a problem. Now, they may be trying to pull the wool over my eyes and sugarcoat it. But that does seem to be the same message that the military get. BBC's Frank Garner. Well, Julianne Smith served as US permanent representative to NATO in the Biden administration.

18:45She was imposed when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Does she share President Trump's confidence that Putin wouldn't attack a nation in NATO? I have worried in recent years about the degree to which President Putin is interested in challenging NATO unity and NATO resolve. And for that reason, I think Russia has been using a number of tactics to try and intimidate allies. And I think the question for all of us is whether or not he would cross the threshold and actually attack NATO territory. I hope President Trump is right. And I want to feel reassured. But I think we do have to ask ourselves some hard questions on whether or not Putin sees an opportunity right now to actually touch and take action against the NATO member state.

19:39We have these three border countries, the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, each of which has significant ethnic Russian minority populations, which might give an excuse for some kind of incursion over the border. Do you believe, are you confident, are you sure, that were one of those countries attacked, President Trump would regard it as an act of aggression against the United States as well, and therefore something under which he should act? Well, it's always hard to predict theoretical, but I would hope that the United States, under President Trump's leadership, would meet its NATO commitments.

20:20Under Article 5, the United States is obligated to come to the aid of a NATO member when it is under attack. But I think we all are well aware that the president has, at best, mixed views about the NATO alliance. And he has said a number of things going back to his campaign many years ago, from the first time he ran for president, openly questioning America's commitment to Article 5. And so I'm not convinced that we can all be assured that the United States today has an ironclad commitment to Article 5 and to the NATO alliance. Your administration, the Biden administration, did something similar to what's happened this week.

21:08It dispatched the then-spy chief Bill Burns to Moscow for talks. Let it be known to President Putin's colleagues, his intelligence team, that there would be a response from America if Ukraine was invaded. And yet Ukraine was invaded. Do you think that any assurances that John Ratcliffe has received this week can be relied upon? Well, there's mixed reporting on why Ratcliffe actually traveled to Moscow. out. Some reporting indicates that he was there to warn President Putin not to take any action against a NATO ally. Others, the New York Times, some other outlets are now saying actually the point of the trip was to make President Putin aware that he is not doing well in Ukraine and he will not prevail.

22:00Now, in truth, it could be a little bit of both. The United States could have some intelligence indicating that Putin's considering taking action against NATO allies, and the U.S. could have used the trip to make sure Putin understood, because it's always unclear what information he has on hand, that Russia is in fact not doing well in the war in Ukraine. So I'm not exactly sure. Obviously, I'm not privy to the reasons behind the trip itself, but one could imagine that both of those messages were delivered simultaneously. The Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a review of US forces in Europe.

22:37It's due to be delivered early in November. Would you be surprised if that resulted in a drawdown of some of those forces in Europe? I would not at all be surprised if the United States rolled out the results of its European posture review with some breaking news on major changes to U.S. force presence across Europe. I don't anticipate a significant cut. I would be shocked to see something upwards of 50 percent cuts. But I think we should all anticipate some changes. The Trump administration is trying to send a strong signal to allies that they must do more for their own security and they must do that now, not in a decade's time.

23:22So I think we should ready ourselves for some sort of changes that could be announced as early as November. That's Washington's former top diplomat at NATO, Julianne Smith. You're listening to The World Tonight and if you're listening to us live, it's exactly 10.30. Now news that will excite parents of children with curious minds. The Never Fear, the third instalment of Catherine Rundle's book series, which began with Impossible Creatures, is out today. When we spoke a little earlier, she told me she's working on the screenplay for a film version and has already thought through plot points for books four and five.

23:56But I began by asking Catherine, who simultaneously topped the book sale charts in both this country and the United States, why she thinks fantasy has such appeal. I think that we have been turning to fantasy to think about large ideas and to go on large adventures for thousands of years. You can trace our desire to think about mythical creatures and impossible happenings all the way back to the Odyssey, to Beowulf, to the Fairy Queen, to the Mord Arthur, onto Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. I think there is something in it that captures our sense of the world as full of impossible things. Your childhood years was spent, I think, in Zimbabwe.

24:36Does that give you a different fantasy, a different magical tradition to draw on in addition to the British one? So I spent part of my childhood from about eight to 14 in Zimbabwe because my father worked in international development. And I think the main thing it gave me was a sense of the natural world as full of creatures that are so astonishing that if you were told they were mythical, you would find that easy to believe. A giraffe is as extraordinary as a griffin. And, you know, for some time, we were absolutely sure that griffins did exist and were a little bit unsure about giraffes. So there is a sense, I think, when you are lucky enough to be in a country where there is still wilderness and you have access to extraordinary natural beauty, that gives you a sense that our beauty is so exquisite as to be almost fantastical.

25:30The Never Fear is the third of what will be a five book sequence. Do you worry at all about sustaining the story? No, it has been the great creative joy of my life to work on these books. And I already know what will happen in book four and five. I have written part of the ending and I know that there will be, you know, there are berserkers who feel no fear, who have to learn to fear in order to learn to love. There is a princess who renounces her throne and discovers that she too has berserker blood. So I know where I'm going and it will be, for me, a great adventure to go there. That's a lovely tease for your readers and for their parents as well who buy these books.

26:13You're also offering a free book. What's the thinking behind that? So the Queen is going to give a copy of Impossible Creatures to every year six or P6 in the United Kingdom as a Christmas gift. And the reckoning behind that is, I think, her belief in the power of a shared story. We have projects across the UK, as for instance, one in Manchester, in which 7 ,000 children are given the same book before they go to secondary school. And the teachers report that what it gives them is a experience in common when they go to their new schools, a kind of talisman that they can all circle around. Because in a world in which many children have very disparate experiences, the book becomes something that they have in common.

27:01I know you've talked very eloquently about your fears about the impact of AI and maybe some of the impact you're already seeing in classrooms when you go to read from your books to children and talk to them. Do you think literary imagination is under attack from technology? I do. I think that AI in particular, the large language model, have in the last few years changed the way that we think about thinking. They've changed the way we think about learning, having a fellowship at Oxford. A lot of my colleagues have said that they have seen a shift in the way that young people approach dense amounts of text, whether that's Plato or Shakespeare or history or even science, that it is harder for them than it was for students.

27:43And of course, this is not saying, oh, the young never do the reading, because of course, Every generation of young people, you know, escape doing all the work they're asked to do. I certainly did. But this is a change that hasn't happened over decades. This is a change that has happened over the last two to three years. The amount of energy that's devoted to scrolling rather than necessary to reading. And to the fact that AI can now create you a perfect summary of a book rather than, or in fact, I shouldn't say perfect, an imperfect summary of a book. but therefore the habit of searching a textbook for the piece of knowledge that you are seeking and thereby building the stamina, the peripheral information that you gain, all of that is being whittled away.

28:26The author of Impossible Creatures, Catherine Mundell. A budget version of the Spanish fashion shop Zara is opening its first UK store in Liverpool. It'll use technology, including a robotic arm, to free up shop workers to help customers. Well, that's the pitch anyway. Our business correspondent Emma Simpson visited Lefties today, that's the name of the chain, and has been telling me what she's seen. So there was a real buzz this morning because it's not that often that you see a new international fashion chain arrive in the UK. And it's nice to talk about openings because I've spent so long talking about closures on the high street given all the turmoil we've seen.