South Africa's health authorities say a listeria outbreak is likely to claim more victims, before it is brought under control. The disease, which has already claimed over 180 lives, can cause fatal bloodstream infections and meningitis. It is caused by bacteria, which can contaminate fresh food such as meat. CGTN's Yolisa Njamela has more.

At least 183 people have been killed in South Africa since January 2017 and almost one thousand infected in the world's worst recorded listeria outbreak. Government has linked the outbreak to a meat product known as polony, A cheap form of protein consumed mostly by South Africans - made by Tiger's Enterprise Food. The disease causes flu-like symptoms, nausea, diarrhea and infection of the blood stream and brain. The disease is not a notifiable disease across Southern African countries‚meaning doctors are not reporting each case to a centralised authority. Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has warned that there could still be other fatal cases.

AARON MOTSOALEDI HEALTH MINISTER, SOUTH AFRICA "You must understand that we're just at the beginning of fighting a very big and complex problem here so we must expect that other cases must emerge. We've been detecting listeria almost every year, I mean every year in the country but because it was not notifiable, we couldn't know that the cases are rising."

The public has been urged to avoid ready-to-eat processed meat, especially polony. Authorities have also emphasized though that healthy people are not at risk of developing listeriosis.

DR JUNO THOMAS NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNICABLE DISEASES "Listeria targets people in certain vulnerable groups and thus includes pregnant women, very young infants, people over the age of 65 and anyone with a weak immune system and importantly in our population this refers to people with HIV, cancer, with kidney or liver disease or with diabetes. Forty percent of our cases in all have been in new babies and this means it's the pregnant mom that gets affected."

While in South Africa‚ there have been 967 confirmed cases and 183 deaths from listeriosis, There has only been one patient in the rest of Southern Africa identified with the disease despite many countries importing implicated products. Namibia recorded a patient on March 12.

YOLISA NJAMELA PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA "Despite the listeria outbreak here, many neighboring countries say they still trust South African products. They've agreed to go on a massive public education drive to ensure that this outbreak is contained, at least for now. Yolisa Njamela, CGTN, Pretoria, South Africa."