European food contamination kills 16, sickens 1150

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110531/ap_on_he_me/eu_contaminated_vegetables_europe

BERLIN – A massive and unprecedented outbreak of bacterial infections linked to contaminated vegetables claimed two more lives in Europe on Tuesday, driving the death toll to 16. The number of sick rose to more than 1,150 people in at least eight nations.
Nearly 400 people in Germany were battling a severe and potentially fatal version of the infection that attacks the kidneys. A U.S. expert said doctors had never seen so many cases of the condition, hemolytic uremic syndrome, tied to a foodborne illness outbreak before.
Investigators across Europe were frantically trying to determine how many vegetables were contaminated with enterohaemorrhagic E.coli — an unusual, toxic strain of the common E. coli bacterium — and where in the long journey from farm to grocery store the contamination occurred.
The highly politicized mystery over the source of the E. coli contamination deepened in the light of new evidence that two strains of the bacterium may be involved. German officials said they were still looking at Spanish produce but Spain said the discovery was proof its farms were not the source.
E. coli is found in large quantities in the digestive systems of humans, cows and other mammals. It has been responsible for a large number of food contamination outbreaks in a wide variety of countries. In most cases, it causes non-lethal stomach ailments.
But enterohaemorrhagic E.coli, or EHEC, causes more severe symptoms, ranging from bloody diarrhea to the rare hemolytic uremic syndrome. In Germany, at least 373 people have come down with the syndrome, or HUS, in which E. coli infection attacks the kidneys, sometimes causing seizures, strokes and comas.
"The idea of an outbreak of over 300 hemolytic uremic syndrome cases is absolutely extraordinary," said Dr. Robert Tauxe, deputy director of foodborne, waterborne and environmental diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
"There has not been such an outbreak before that we know of in the history of public health," Tauxe said, adding that the German strain of E. coli has not been seen in the United States.
German officials say that investigations including interviews with patients have shown people were likely infected by eating raw cucumbers, tomatoes or lettuce, and they are warning consumers to avoid those vegetables.
European Union officials say Germany has identified cucumbers from the Spanish regions of Almeria and Malaga as possible sources of contamination. They say a third suspect batch, originating either in the Netherlands or in Denmark and sold in Germany, was also under investigation.
They noted that imported cucumbers could have been contaminated at any point on the long route to retail customers. Denmark said that no traces of EHEC bacteria were found in tests of vegetables conducted there over the weekend. Exports of Dutch cucumber to Germany were halted but authorities said tests of a cucumber grower and a warehouse found no EHEC. bacteria there either.
Authorities in Hamburg said last week that they had detected EHEC on four cucumbers, three of them imported from Spain and the fourth of unclear origin, which were on sale in a market in the city.
On Tuesday, however, officials said they had found a slightly different type of EHEC on the cucumbers than the type detected in the feces of sick people in Germany, though reiterated that even though that meant those vegetables did not cause the outbreak, they still posed a health risk.
Spain's agriculture minister, Rosa Aguilar, seized on it as evidence that "our cucumbers are not responsible for the situation."
Spain exports most of its produce to other countries in Europe.
The vast majority of EHEC infections have affected either Germans or people who recently traveled to Germany. Germany's top health said 796 people in the country have been hit by less serious infection with the EHEC bacteria. The northern city of Hamburg and surrounding areas have been worst affected.
Other cases have been reported in Denmark, France, the Czech Republic, the U.K., the Netherlands and Switzerland but the World Health Organization said it only had confirmation of the German cases and another six cases in France.
There is frequently a lag between reports of disease outbreaks by national authorities and confirmation by the WHO.
German regional officials have said they are seeing a sharp drop in the number of new cases.
Officials in the northwestern city of Paderborn said, however, that an 87-year-old who suffered from a variety of ailments including recent EHEC infection had died early Tuesday.
In Sweden, hospital medical chief Jerker Isacson said that the Swedish woman who died had been ill for a few days before she arrived at the hospital on Sunday and died early Tuesday.
"She developed serious complications, among other things on the kidneys," he said.
The Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control on Monday said 41 Swedes have been infected with EHEC so far, including 15 with HUS.
Britt Akerlind, spokeswoman at the institute, said it is unclear why so many Swedes had been infected, but said it could be that efficient reporting mechanism in the Nordic country means more cases have been discovered here.
In the meantime, Russia's chief sanitary agency on Monday banned the imports of cucumbers, tomatoes and fresh salad from Spain and Germany pending further notice.
It said that it may even ban the imports of fresh vegetables from all European Union member states due to the lack of information about the source of infection.
___
Cheng reported from London. Mike Stobbe in Atlanta, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Karl Ritter and Malin Rising in Stockholm contributed to this story.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/world/europe/03ecoli.html?_r=1
Health Official Says E. Coli Strain Was Previously Unknown

The World Health Organization said Thursday that an unusually lethal strain of E. coli, which has infected more than 1,500 people in Germany, mystified public health officials and threatened to touch off panic in Europe, was a previously unknown variant of the bacteria, raising new concerns about the extent and severity of the contagion.

In Geneva, Gregory Hartl, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, said: “What we understand is this is a strain which has never been detected in an outbreak situation before.” He said scientists at “many laboratories” were working to gather more information about the strain. The origins of the outbreak, which has killed at least 17 people — 16 in Germany and a Swede who visited there recently — remains unknown.

In a statement on Thursday, a Chinese laboratory collaborating with German scientists said the contagion had been caused by a “new strain of bacteria that is highly infectious and toxic.” The strain carries “several antibiotic resistant genes,” according to the Beijing Genomics Institute in the southern city of Shenzen, “which makes antibiotic treatment extremely difficult.”

The statement referred to the strain as “entirely new” and “super-toxic” and said it was similar to a strain known as EAEC 55989 found in the Central African Republic and known to cause serious diarrhea. The Chinese laboratory had been working with scientists at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf at the epicenter of the outbreak.
 
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[This sounds serious!]

Bacteria Outbreak Casts Pall on Spanish Produce
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/world/europe/02spain.html

By RAPHAEL MINDER
Published: June 1, 2011

MOTRIL, Spain — Early June is normally one of the busiest seasons here in Spain’s farming heartland, as an army of seasonal farmworkers harvests cucumbers and tomatoes in the 5,000 greenhouses that dot the surrounding countryside. But most of the greenhouses were deserted on Wednesday, as demand for Spanish vegetables collapsed after the regional authorities initially linked a deadly outbreak of E. coli in Germany to farms in Andalusia.
 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110605/ap_on_re_eu/eu_contaminated_vegetables_europe

E. coli outbreak blamed on German veggie sprouts

HAMBURG, Germany – The terrifying E. coli outbreak in Europe appears to have been caused by vegetable sprouts grown in Germany, an agriculture official Sunday as the toll climbed to at least 22 dead and more than 2,200 sickened.

Preliminary tests found that bean sprouts and other sprout varieties from an organic farm in the Uelzen area, between the northern cities of Hamburg and Hannover, could be connected to infected people in five German states, Lower Saxony Agriculture Minister Gert Lindemann said.

"There were more and more indications in the last few hours that put the focus on this farm," Lindemann said at a news conference.

Many restaurants involved in the outbreak had received deliveries of the sprouts, which are often used in salads, Lindemann's spokesman, Gert Hahne, told The Associated Press.

Definitive test results should be available Monday, Lindemann said.

In recent days, as health officials tried to pinpoint the source of the unusually lethal outbreak, suspicion fell on lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes, perhaps from Spain. Spanish farmers complained that the accusations were having a devastating financial effect.

The German farm was shut down Sunday and all of its produce — including fresh herbs, fruits, flowers and potatoes — was recalled. Two of the farm's employees were also infected with E. coli, Lindemann said. He said 18 different sprout mixtures from the farm were under suspicion — including sprouts of mung beans, broccoli, peas, chickpeas, garlic lentils and radishes.

As for how the sprouts became contaminated, Lindemann noted that they are grown with steam in barrels — an ideal environment for bacteria to multiply.

He said it is possible that the water had been contaminated with E. coli or that the sprout seeds — purchased in Germany and other countries — already contained the bacteria. He said the farmers had not used any manure, which has been known to cause E. coli outbreaks.
 
[I thought this was solved! NOT.]

WHO: Time running out to solve E. coli outbreak
WHO: Time running out to solve E. coli outbreak

LONDON — An expert at the World Health Organization says time is running out for German investigators to find the source of the world's deadliest E. coli outbreak, which has spread fear across Europe and cost farmers millions in exports.

German officials are still seeking the cause of the outbreak weeks after it began May 2. In the last week, they have wrongly accused Spanish cucumbers and then German sprouts of sparking the crisis that has killed 22 people and infected over 2,400.

"If we don't know the likely culprit in a week's time, we may never know the cause," Dr. Guenael Rodier, director of communicable diseases expert at WHO, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
 
Germany Concludes E. Coli Tainted Bean Sprouts

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/world/europe/11ecoli.html?_r=1

After days of confusion, German authorities finally concluded on Friday that an E. coli infection, which has claimed at least 29 lives, unsettled the nation and thrown European agriculture into disarray, had been caused by contaminated bean sprouts and not, as first was feared, by other produce.

But, at a news conference here, Reinhard Burger, the head of the Robert Koch Institute — the country’s disease control agency — said the outbreak was “not yet over” because “there will be new cases coming up.”

Doubts about the cause of the illness have blossomed with the authorities first saying the infection came from imported Spanish cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce. After initially warning consumers not to eat those products, the authorities said last weekend that contaminated bean sprouts were the source.

But tests carried out on bean sprout samples produced only negative results. At the news conference on Friday, Mr. Burger said investigations centering on interviews with patients and even the chefs at restaurants where they had eaten showed that people who had consumed bean sprouts were nine times more likely to become infected than those who had not.

No harmful bacteria had been found in any samples, he said. But from the pattern of the outbreak, “it was possible to narrow down epidemiologically the cause of the outbreak of the illness to the consumption of sprouts.”
 
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