Germany holds E. coli crisis meeting

Article from Herald Sun :

" GERMANY called crisis talks today over warnings that an outbreak of E. coli bacteria poisoning, which is believed to have already left 10 dead, was still spreading.

Some two weeks after the outbreak was first reported in the north of the country, the number of people contaminated or suspected of having been poisoned by the potentially deadly enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) has reached 1,200, according to media reports.

There was no immediate official confirmation of the figure but the Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has described the outbreak as "one of the largest worldwide and the largest ever reported in Germany".

EHEC can result in full-blown haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), a disease that causes bloody diarrhoea and serious liver damage and which can result in death.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany's national disease institute, reported 329 HUS cases nationwide and three confirmed deaths.

Consumer Affairs Minister Ilse Aigner was to hold an emergency meeting later today with Health Minister Daniel Bahr and regional state representatives to discuss the outbreak, her ministry announced.

The outbreak has also affected several other European countries, including Britain, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands, though most cases appeared to involve people who had travelled from Germany, the Stockholm centre said."