Skin cream recalled in US due to bacterial contamination
The Indian firm's Texas-based subsidiary found the presence of the bacterium staphylococcus aureus as well as fungus in samples of the cream from batch #S691001.
The bacterium is commonly found as part of the flora of the skin, but can cause a range of illnesses in immune-compromised people or if introduced to broken skin.
This includes skin infections such as pimples, impetigo, boils, scalded skin syndrome, and abscesses, as well as life-threatening diseases such as pneumonia, meningitis, toxic shock syndrome (TSS), sepsis and bacteraemia, which is the presence of bacteria in the blood, amongst others.
Third party contamination
According to the company, the contamination was traced back to the bottle’s pump components which were manufactured and supplied by a third party.
The pump components found to be contaminated were in just batch #S691001, however, for safety reasons batch #S691002 is also being recalled.
“Although no microbes were found in batch #S691002, the same pump components may have been used in its manufacturing, so in an abundance of safety, HimalayaUSA is voluntarily recalling this batch, too”, the company said.
Future precautions
“To date, [HimalayaUSA] has received no reports of consumer injury”, and subsequently all other batches of the product have been tested and are free of contamination, the company added.
Likewise, in light of the contamination, all third party pump components in future will be tested for bacteria.
The product was distributed widely in the US and Canada and was sold in a cylinder shaped teal bottle with an orange cap.
