Experts confirm sprouts caused E. coli outbreak
Source: Agencies |
June 11, 2011, Saturday
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German vegetable sprouts caused the E. coli outbreak that has killed 31 people and sickened more than 3,000, investigators said yesterday after tracking the bacteria from patients in hospital beds to restaurants and then farm fields.
Reinhard Burger, president of the Robert Koch Institute, Germany's national disease control center, said the pattern of the outbreak had produced enough evidence to draw that conclusion even though no tests on sprouts from an organic farm in Lower Saxony had come back positive.
"In this way, it was possible to narrow down epidemiologically the cause of the outbreak of the illness to the consumption of sprouts," Burger told reporters at a press conference with the heads of Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment and its Federal Office for Consumer Protection. "It is the sprouts."
The breakthrough came after an expert team from the three institutes linked separate clusters of patients who had fallen sick to 26 restaurants and cafeterias that had received produce from the organic farm.
"It was like a crime thriller where you have to find the bad guy," said Helmut Tschiersky-Schoeneburg of the consumer protection agency.
"They even studied the menus, the ingredients, looked at bills and took pictures of the different meals, which they then showed to those who had fallen ill," said Andreas Hensel, head of the risk assessment agency.
Burger said all the tainted sprouts may have either been consumed or thrown away by now but warned that the crisis is not yet over and people should still not eat sprouts.
Authorities, however, were lifting the warning against eating cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce. "Lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers should be eaten again. It is all healthy produce," Hensel said.
Russia agreed to lift its ban on European vegetable imports and Spanish farmers - who had been hardest hit as wary Europeans shunned vegetables - breathed a sigh of relief.
It is not unusual to lack a "smoking gun" in food-borne outbreaks, said Norman Noah, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
He said the culprits are often identified only by epidemiological evidence because the contaminated food had disappeared by the time scientists begin taking samples.
The farm near the northern German village of Bienenbuettel that has been blamed for the outbreak was shut down last Thursday and all of its produce recalled. Still, the experts said some tainted sprouts could still be around and people could still get infected with E. coli.
Also, since it has not yet be established why the sprouts were bad - whether the seeds had been contaminated or the farm's water was - the experts said it was possible that other farms could be affected.
Germany has been the epicenter of the world's deadliest E. coli outbreak. The Koch Institute raised the toll yesterday to 31 dead and 2,988 people sickened, 759 of them suffering from a complication that can cause kidney failure. The World Health Organization says 97 others are sick in 12 other European countries, as well as three in the United States.
Reinhard Burger, president of the Robert Koch Institute, Germany's national disease control center, said the pattern of the outbreak had produced enough evidence to draw that conclusion even though no tests on sprouts from an organic farm in Lower Saxony had come back positive.
"In this way, it was possible to narrow down epidemiologically the cause of the outbreak of the illness to the consumption of sprouts," Burger told reporters at a press conference with the heads of Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment and its Federal Office for Consumer Protection. "It is the sprouts."
The breakthrough came after an expert team from the three institutes linked separate clusters of patients who had fallen sick to 26 restaurants and cafeterias that had received produce from the organic farm.
"It was like a crime thriller where you have to find the bad guy," said Helmut Tschiersky-Schoeneburg of the consumer protection agency.
"They even studied the menus, the ingredients, looked at bills and took pictures of the different meals, which they then showed to those who had fallen ill," said Andreas Hensel, head of the risk assessment agency.
Burger said all the tainted sprouts may have either been consumed or thrown away by now but warned that the crisis is not yet over and people should still not eat sprouts.
Authorities, however, were lifting the warning against eating cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce. "Lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers should be eaten again. It is all healthy produce," Hensel said.
Russia agreed to lift its ban on European vegetable imports and Spanish farmers - who had been hardest hit as wary Europeans shunned vegetables - breathed a sigh of relief.
It is not unusual to lack a "smoking gun" in food-borne outbreaks, said Norman Noah, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
He said the culprits are often identified only by epidemiological evidence because the contaminated food had disappeared by the time scientists begin taking samples.
The farm near the northern German village of Bienenbuettel that has been blamed for the outbreak was shut down last Thursday and all of its produce recalled. Still, the experts said some tainted sprouts could still be around and people could still get infected with E. coli.
Also, since it has not yet be established why the sprouts were bad - whether the seeds had been contaminated or the farm's water was - the experts said it was possible that other farms could be affected.
Germany has been the epicenter of the world's deadliest E. coli outbreak. The Koch Institute raised the toll yesterday to 31 dead and 2,988 people sickened, 759 of them suffering from a complication that can cause kidney failure. The World Health Organization says 97 others are sick in 12 other European countries, as well as three in the United States.
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