Alaska state investigators announced the first known case of botulism caused by home-canned salmon after a man was hospitalized in August.

Botulism is a potentially deadly neuroparalytic disease that is caused by a bacteria that is known to grow anaerobically in improperly prepared canned foods.

Luckily for this patient, he made it out of the hospital fully recovered.

According to a bulletin in the state's epidemiology website the man was hospitalized on Aug. 20, the day after he ate some of his home-canned salmon that "tasted unpleasant" and had not been re-cooked prior to being consumed. He awoke around 7 a.m. feeling light-headed and thereafter developed slurred speech, blurred vision, and facial weakness.

In the emergency room, he was quickly treated for what the physicians suspected was botulism poisoning and he was administered a botulism antitoxin.

Joe McLaughlin, State Epidemiologist said that the man was "very fortunate" to receive the antitoxin within about seven hours of symptom onset, which can stop the progression of the illness and shorten its duration.

Because of the higher rates of botulism in Alaska - 1.9 in 100,000 instead of one in 1,000,000 in the rest of the United States - eight hospitals in Alaska are supplied with the antitoxin, according to McLaughlin, which allows it to be delivered more quickly to patients.

In the meantime, the patient was put on mechanical ventilation for 39 hours and stayed in the intensive care unit for four more days. After a week in the hospital, he was released having fully recovered.

The epidemiology

Bulletin

states that investigators found that the patient had caught the salmon in late July, refrigerated it, and then canned it using a slow cooker instead of a recommended pressure canner.

The UAF Cooperative Extension recommends 100 minutes at a minimum pressure of 11 pounds for canning salmon.

"If you don't have that high pressure to kill those spores, the spores will survive the heating process," said McLaughlin.

A few days later, the man told investigators, he started to notice that one jar was not fully sealed and that it had started to smell, so he put it in the refrigerator. Later, ten more jars started to smell and were also refrigerated.

The UAF Cooperative Extension recommends that "If fish smells bad or if you see gas bubbles, THROW CONTENTS AWAY!"

Officials say that this case was caused by type E botulism, which is less common than type A and B, which is more prevalent in canned vegetables. But in the Arctic, type E is the most common and can survive lower temperatures than types A and B.

State epidemiologists say that this was the first case of botulism caused by home-canned salmon, but other cases have been reported, all of which were linked to consumption of traditionally prepared Alaska Native foods.

According to a 2017 report, the disease is most commonly associated with sea mammals, but also sometimes with salmon, salmon eggs, and other fish. Semi-aquatic mammals such as beaver also account for a small portion of the outbreaks. From 1950 until 2016, there were over 300 confirmed cases of botulism in Alaska.

There were also three deaths associated with the consumption of canned Alaska salmon in Europe in the late 1970s and early 80s.

A previous version of this article stated that a pressure cooker is recommended for canning salmon. In fact, pressure canners, which have pressure gauges, are recommended. Pressure cookers do not all have pressure gauges and are thus unsafe for canning foods.