A concerned mum has detailed how her daughter was left looking "dead behind the eyes" after claiming that she contracted salmonella from a Kinder Surprise chocolate egg.
Charlotte Wingfield has shared images of Brooklyn Mai, three, looking wiped out with a 39C temperature caused by food poisoning.
She posted the pictures on Facebook as Kinder issued an urgent warning not to eat any of its products as they are recalled from supermarkets and that the chocolate factory in Belgium has been ordered to close, Yorkshire Live reports.
Ms Wingfield's post has been shared around 500 times. In it, she describes how Brooklyn-Mai has never been so unwell in her short life.
She said: "Brooklyn-Mai has been so so poorly since I picked her up from nursery on Monday. Seeing as I was so ill last week, I thought nothing of it than her just coming down with the tummy bug I had until she slept for 21 out of the following 24 hours and then kept falling asleep as she was doing things.
"Her temperature spiked to over 39° and I struggled to disturb her. I knew something wasn't right and spoke to the GP who ran through a list of what it could be.
"I came off the phone thinking she had a viral bug. Fast forward three days and it's been confirmed she has salmonella from the Kinder chocolate she ate on Sunday."
The worried mum said in just 96 hours, Brooklyn-Mai had mostly slept. For the 12 to 14 hours she was awake, she said it was like she wasn't really there at all.
"She's been completely dead behind the eyes and so lifeless, it's been absolutely heartbreaking to see my usually fiery, adventurous and very active baby girl be the complete opposite of everything she usually is," she said.
Chocolate firm Ferrero said it is suspending operations at its plant in Arlon, which it said will only reopen “once certified by the authorities”. Ferrero said it acknowledged “internal inefficiencies, creating delays in retrieving and sharing information in a timely manner” and said these had “impacted the speed and effectiveness of the investigations”.
The widening of the recall to include all Kinder products manufactured at the site between June and the present date was announced by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) on Friday night. The previous recall only covered products with best-before dates up to October 7, 2022.
The FSA, which is continuing to investigate an outbreak of salmonella cases linked to Kinder products, said the new update means all the products in the recall notice, no matter what the best-before date is, should not be eaten. The recall is related to the same products – Kinder Surprise, Kinder Mini Eggs, Kinder Surprise 100g and Kinder Schokobons – announced earlier in the week.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said on Friday that 67 people in the UK, mostly young children, are known to have been infected with salmonella in the outbreak linked to the treats, which is now believed to have come from buttermilk used in the products.
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