Overview

• Luigi Di Sarno, 52, died on August 7 after eating a broccoli and sausage sandwich from a food truck on Diamante’s seafront and collapsing while driving.
• Nine other customers, including two 17-year-olds and two women in their 40s, were hospitalised with paralysis and breathing issues linked to botulism, with two in critical condition.
• The Paola Public Prosecutor’s Office has seized jars of broccoli in oil along with the implicated food truck and opened a formal investigation into how the toxin spread.
• Under Italy’s emergency protocol, antitoxin serum is stored and dispatched exclusively by the Ministry of Health through the Poison Control Center in Pavia, with extra vials flown in for treatment.
• Authorities have maintained a nationwide recall of broccoli in oil and are awaiting autopsy results to confirm the exact cause of Di Sarno’s death.