The number of people sick in a hepatitis A outbreak linked to frozen strawberries in Sweden has risen to 11.
From mid-September 2025, seven people were infected with the same type of hepatitis A virus belonging to genotype IA. They all ate frozen imported strawberries and raspberries that had not been heated before eating.
However, no virus was detected in the berry samples, so the suspected source of infection could not be confirmed.
Four more people fell ill in February and March 2026. They also ate frozen strawberries and raspberries. The 11 patients are 6 men and 5 women aged 17 to 64 and live in various parts of the country.
The Swedish Food Agency (Livsmedelsverket) and the Swedish Public Health Agency (Folkhälsomyndigheten) are participating in the investigation.
Hepatitis A is a virus that can cause liver infection. Symptoms last for several days to several months and begin 15 to 50 days after the patient becomes infected. Symptoms range from mild to severe and include sudden onset of fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, abdominal pain, dark-colored urine, and jaundice, which causes the skin and whites of the eyes to turn yellow.
Situation in 2025
Folkhälsomyndigheten also published figures on the number of diseases caused by some major pathogens in 2025.
Listeria infections have increased and reached the highest reported levels. There were 158 cases in 2025 compared to 114 cases in 2024.
A contributing factor to this was an incident that occurred at a restaurant in Stockholm. There were 16 confirmed cases of sickness after eating at the event venue. In another 20 cases, the outbreak strain was detected in stool samples but was not reportable according to the case definition. The same type of Listeria bacteria found in the patient was also found in several food and environmental samples from the restaurant, but none of the foods was definitively identified as the source of infection. The outbreak was unusual because the sick people were relatively young and did not belong to any risk group.
According to typing data, the 95 isolates belonged to 29 different clusters, 14 of which also included isolates identified before 2025. Officials said this indicates ongoing, long-term spread from an unknown source of infection.
The number of salmonella infections was 1,431, a decrease of 11% compared to the previous year. This decline is primarily due to several large outbreaks occurring in 2024.
Despite this decline, several outbreaks were investigated in 2025, including a major Salmonella Enteritidis incident involving 118 cases linked to Swedish egg production. The outbreak occurred across the country but affected nursing homes where many people fell ill.
Nearly 50 people have contracted a similar strain of Salmonella that caused a major outbreak in 2024 linked to alfalfa sprouts from contaminated seeds produced in Italy. These included Salmonella Typhimurium, Richmond, Kinondoni and Newport.
Infections caused by Cryptosporidium have also increased. Swedish kale was suspected as the source of infection when a large outbreak occurred in the spring.
In the case of Campylobacter, E. coli, Shigella, and hepatitis A, there was no significant change in the number of patients compared to 2024.
There were 5,463 reported cases of Campylobacter infection in 2025, compared to 5,440 in 2024. The incidence rate among people infected domestically was slightly higher than that among people infected outside Sweden. Spain and Thailand top the list of travel-related cases.
A total of 908 E. coli infections were recorded. This is slightly more than the 848 cases in 2024. The proportion of infected cases in Sweden was 62%. For overseas infections, the main countries were Egypt and Turkey. Eighty-eight serotypes were identified among the 386 analyzed isolates. The most common types, as before, were O157:H7, O26:H11, and O103:H2.
There were 30 cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) in E. coli patients. Eight serotypes were found in 20 types of isolates, including O26:H11 eight times and O157:H7 four times.
Yersinia saw a sharp decline, with cases halving between 2024 and 2025. This decline is primarily due to changes in the 2025 case definitions that clarify which types of Yersinia should be reported.
