THE OUTBREAKS OF KILLER CUCUMBER E COLI KILLS MANY IN EUROPE

Goats eat discarded cucumbers at a farm in Algarrobo, near Malaga in southern Spain on Tuesday.

BRUSSELS, Germany - E Coli outbreak of deadly bacteria upon some of the areas in Germany since last week that killed up to 16 people and infect 1,150 people in eight European countries. Allegedly, the plague comes from vegetables or fruits, but haven’t found a source for sure from where the bacteria came from.
The German disease control agency the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported yesterday 365 new E. coli cases, a quarter of them involving the hemolytic-uremic syndrome (Hus), a life-threatening complication of a type of E. coli known as Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (Stec).

• European Union officials said three cases had also been reported in the United States, adding that most infections reported outside Germany involved German nationals or people who had recently travelled to the country.
• The RKI figures contradicted remarks by European Union Health Commissioner John Dalli, who said the number of new cases appeared to be in decline.
• German authorities initially identified cucumbers imported from Spain as the likely source of the outbreak. But on Tuesday they admitted that further tests on the cucumbers showed that, while contaminated, they did not carry the dangerous bacteria strain responsible for the deaths.
• Paul Hunter, a professor of health protection at Britain's University of East Anglia, said he was not surprised by the German finding that cucumbers were not to blame.
• "Cucumbers are not normally implicated in food poisoning outbreaks. They are so easy to clean for a start, and bacteria are less likely to be able to find a protected spot," he said.
• "On the other hand, salads are a regular cause of outbreaks of food borne diseases including Stec, like this one, and salmonella. Outbreaks associated with consumption of salads are quite common on both sides of the Atlantic," he added.

Spanish farmers say lost sales resulting from the crisis are costing them €200 million a week, and could put 70,000 people out of work in a country which already has the highest unemployment rate in the EU.

Source: Agency