Food poisoning outbreak claims 100 more victims in Germany

Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner said scientists were working non-stop to find the source of the unusual strain of the E.coli bacteria that is believed to have been spread in Europe on tainted vegetables – and where in the long journey from farm to grocery store the contamination occurred.

She said: “Hundreds of tests have been done and the responsible agencies...have determined that most of the patients who have been sickened ate cucumbers, tomatoes and leaf lettuce and primarily in northern Germany.

“The states that have conducted the tests must now follow back the delivery path to see how the cucumbers, or tomatoes or lettuce got here.”

German authorities initially pointed to a few cucumbers from Spain, but further tests showed that those vegetables, while contaminated, did not cause the outbreak. But officials are still warning all Germans to avoid eating raw cucumbers, tomatoes or lettuce.

Spain says it is not ruling out taking legal action against the German authorities for blaming Spanish vegetables for the outbreak.

Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said: “We do not rule out taking actions against Hamburg authorities who have questioned the quality of our products.”

Spain has complained that German authorities pointed the finger at Spanish produce before the result of tests were known.

The allegations have virtually paralysed exports of Spanish fruit and vegetables, causing major financial losses.

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 diarrhoea to the rare hemolytic uremic syndrome.

Germany’s national health agency the Robert Koch Institute said 470 people are now suffering from the syndrome, or HUS, in which E.coli infection attacks the kidneys, sometimes causing seizures, strokes and comas, up from 373 reported on Tuesday.

Germany typically sees a maximum of 50 to 60 HUS cases in a year.

An additional 1,064 cases of EHEC have been reported in Germany since the beginning of May, up from 796 the day before, the Robert Koch Institute said.

The World Health Organisation said cases of EHEC have been reported in nine European countries: Austria, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

All but two cases are either people in Germany, or people who had recently travelled to northern Germany, the organisation said.

It was “extraordinary” to see so many cases of the kidney complication from a foodborne illness, said Dr Robert Tauxe, a foodborne disease expert at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

“There has not been such an outbreak before that we know of in the history of public health.”

In 1996, an E.coli outbreak linked to infected meat sold by a butcher in Wishaw in Scotland led to the deaths of 21 people and is believed to have affected around 500.

The World Health Organisation said 86 per cent of those affected in the current outbreak were adults, and two-thirds were women.