Search This Blog

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Germany suspects three more E. coli fatalities

Article from Gulf Times :

" German health chiefs said yesterday that they feared bacteria blamed on tainted Spanish cucumbers had caused three more deaths in the country amid efforts to trace the cause of an illness affecting hundreds.

The confirmed number of deaths in Germany from the enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) bacteria currently stands at two, but seven more are now suspected among about 300 cases of infection reported in several countries in the past week.

The three new deaths in north Germany were announced by the health ministry of Schleswig-Holstein state and a clinic in Hamburg.

The latest deaths of two women in their 80s and a third in her 30s.

Authorities in southern Spain said yesterday that they had introduced restrictions on two distributors suspected of exporting cucumbers tainted with the bacteria that causes the potentially fatal haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS).

The regional council of Andalusia said suspect batches of cucumbers had been withdrawn pending laboratory checks whose results would be known tomorrow.

The European Commission said earlier that Spain had suspended the activities of two distributors in the southern provinces of Almeria and Malaga, but spokesman Frederic Vincent confirmed yesterday that only the greenhouses where the suspect cucumbers had been grown were affected.

“We don’t know where the contamination occurred, whether on the (Spanish) sites or along the distribution chain,” he said.

A probe was launched and samples taken from the soil, water and products from the two agricultural sites, the European Union’s executive arm said on Friday.

“Investigations are ongoing to identify other potential sources, while a third suspect batch of cucumbers originating either in the Netherlands or in Denmark, and traded in Germany, is also under investigation,” it said.

A suspect consignment of Spanish cucumbers was distributed to Denmark, but authorities there traced the vegetables and withdrew them from the market, the statement said."

No comments:

Post a Comment