E. coli outbreak in Europe
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'CAFO': Creating Drug resisE.Coli and spreading it around...
'CAFO' = Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations.
Video @21m42s: [link]- To create drug resistant E.Coli: feed cows lots a cheap farm corn- abuse the cows, abuse the workers and walla!!!
Link to portion of video about 'E.Coli'@ [link]
References:
- 'E coli outbreak caused by new strain: WHO': "LONDON- The E coli bacteria responsible for a deadly outbreak that has left 18 dead and hundreds ill in Europe - with Britain the latest to be hit - is a new strain that has never been seen before, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday... a mutant form of two different E coli bacteria, with aggressive genes that could explain why the Europe-wide outbreak appears to be so massive and dangerous, the agency said." [TDY/ Agencies, 03Jun2011] -
Avoid raw food for now: doctors
SINGAPORE: Doctors are advising Singaporeans to avoid raw food for now, following the E. coli outbreak in Europe that has killed 18 people.
The bacteria is commonly transmitted via contaminated raw food and sometimes through contaminated water. It can also be transmitted from person to person.
Singaporeans travelling to Germany should avoid eating raw tomatoes and leafy vegetables like lettuce and cucumbers, says Dr Douglas Chan, Associate Consultant at the National University Hospital's Division of Microbiology.
Symptoms of E. coli infection include abdominal pain and bloody diarrhoea.
When it comes to food preparation, doctors say raw and cooked food should be separated to reduce contamination.
They advise eating cooked food as it means the bacteria is killed before consumption.
Associate Professor Leo Yee Sin, head of Department of Infectious Diseases at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, said: "It is a personal choice whether this person will take up a salad or raw food, but I would strongly suggest that at this moment in time when the situation is less clear, it's good to avoid raw food or food that you really do not know the source, whether or not it could potentially be contaminated, unclean or poorly prepared."
- CNA/ir -
Superbugs !
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Mystery deepens over E. coli poisoning
HAMBURG - AN OUTBREAK of killer E. coli that has spread to 12 countries and killed 19 people may be linked to a Hamburg festival in May and could have caused a 20th death, according to reports on Saturday.
As authorities continued to hunt the source of the killer bug, Germany's national disease centre, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), is looking closely at a harbour festival that took place in Hamburg on May 6-8.
A paper said the festival drew 1.5 million visitors from Germany and abroad and noted that the first reported case of E. coli infection followed just a week later in the city's university hospital.
German media also said on Saturday a man in his 50s who died in Brandenberg may be the 20th victim but the cause of death was uncertain because he had several other infections as well as E. coli.
Faced with uncertainty over the source of the outbreak, reports said police were investigating a possible deliberate act and were checking two restaurants in the northern town of Lubeck, one in which 17 diners fell ill and another in which eight women were sickened.
On Thursday Germany authorities said the number of new infections appeared to be stabilising.
-- AFP
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haizz....what now...
E.Coli......sounds like BROCCOLI.....yeeee....
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E. coli case linked to Hamburg festival?
HAMBURG: An outbreak of the E. coli that has spread to 12 countries and killed 19 people may be linked to a Hamburg festival in May and could have caused a 20th death, according to reports on Saturday.
As authorities continued to hunt the source of the killer bug, Germany's national disease centre, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), is looking closely at a harbour festival that took place in Hamburg on May 6-8.
The weekly newspaper Focus said Saturday the festival drew 1.5 million visitors from Germany and abroad and noted that the first reported case of E. coli infection followed just a week later in the city's university hospital.
German media also said Saturday a man in his 50s who died in Brandenberg may be the 20th victim but the cause of death was uncertain because he had several other infections as well as E. coli.
The latest confirmed death was of an 80-year-old woman in the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Friday.
She succumbed as German authorities were still warning consumers off raw vegetables, despite the EU's Reference Laboratory for E. coli in Rome saying scientific tests had failed to support a link to the outbreak.
Faced with uncertainty over the source of the outbreak, reports said police were investigating a possible deliberate act and were also checking two restaurants in the northern town of Lubeck, one in which 17 diners fell ill and another in which eight women were sickened, one of whom died.
On Thursday Germany authorities said the number of new infections appeared to be stabilising.
But Reinhard Brunkhorst, president of the German Nephrology Society, added: "We are dealing here in fact with the biggest epidemic caused by bacteria in recent decades."
All but one of the fatalities since the outbreak of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) poisoning began last month have occurred in Germany. A patient who died in Sweden had recently returned from Germany.
Regional German health authorities have reported more than 2,000 cases of people falling ill, with symptoms including stomach cramps, diarrhoea, fever and vomiting.
A large majority are female, suggesting the source is "probably something that women prefer more than men," Andrea Ellis, an epidemiologist at the World Health Organisation's (WHO) department of food safety, said in Geneva.
In some cases the infection can lead to bloody diarrhoea and potentially life-threatening conditions such as haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), a kidney disease.
At least 552 people, 520 of them in Germany, have HUS, according to the WHO, with 10 other European countries plus the United States reporting HUS or EHEC infections.
The outbreak was "the largest epidemic of HUS to have occurred anywhere in the world," according to Francois-Xavier Weill, head of France's National Reference Centre for E. coli.
In addition to Germany, cases of E. coli poisoning have been reported in Austria, Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.
Britain confirmed four more cases of poisoning on Friday, bringing the total number of infected in the country to 11.
Each is related to German travel and three of the patients have HUS, the Health Protection Agency said.
The WHO has identified the bacteria as a rare E. coli strain never before connected to an outbreak of food poisoning. But researchers in Hamburg said earlier they and Chinese colleagues had found the strain was a "new type" which is extremely aggressive and resistant to antibiotics.
Germany authorities were quick to point the blame for the outbreak at cucumbers imported from Spain, triggering trade tensions.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended the false cucumber alert in a phone call Thursday with Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, saying authorities were "duty-bound to inform the public at all times."
The advisory, retracted this week, left tens of thousands of tonnes of Spanish produce unsold, costing Spanish growers an estimated 200 million euros ($290 million) a week.
To ease tension over the heavy losses, European agriculture ministers are scheduled to meet in Luxembourg for talks after June 17, according to diplomats.
With no clarity on the source of the mysterious bacteria, the outbreak has led some countries such as Russia and Lebanon to ban vegetables from the EU, in moves criticised by the 27-member bloc.
-AFP/wk -
can't eat raw food anymore... no more chicken nuggets.. roast your meat well and fry your veg... meat and also veg all mass productions from big corporations and organic food so expesnive... hahaha..
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indulge in the overcooked in view of safety...think i will have to cook my vegetables like..
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thk gdness it is not Ebola or Marburg
anyway, the inability to trace the source is disturbing
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E. coli deaths at 22
STOCKHOLM: The death toll from the killer E. coli outbreak has risen to 22, all but one of them in Germany, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said on Sunday.
The Stockholm-based centre said 1,605 cases of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) infection had been recorded and 658 others have the associated condition haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS).
The vast majority of cases are in Germany, the source of the outbreak, which has 1,536 people infected and 627 with HUS.
The previous death toll stood at 19, 18 of them in Germany, with a suspected 20th case reported there on Saturday. The other victim died in Sweden.
Sunday's figures showed a rise of 328 in cases of EHEC and 107 HUS compared with the previous day, again almost all of them in Germany.
Four new infections were recorded in Britain and Denmark however.
Following the publication of the figures Sweden reported a new case of EHEC, bringing the total affected there to 47 - 32 with EHEC and 15 with HUS, according to the Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control.
The WHO has identified the bacteria as a rare E. coli strain never before connected to an outbreak of food poisoning. It is said to be extremely aggressive and resistant to antibiotics.
-AFP/wk -
hmmm...raw food, tomatoes, vegetables...
grapes, berries? for wine lovers....do consider German/ European wines?....
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Seed sprouts might be responsible for killer bacteria, says minister
HANOVER, Germany: Seed sprouts are suspected of being at the root of a deadly E. coli outbreak which has killed 22 people, mainly in Germany, a regional agriculture minister said on Sunday.
Gert Lindermann, who represents Lower-Saxony, said there was not yet definite proof but a connection had been made "involving all the main outbreaks" of the disease, which has also left more than 2,000 people ill.
News of the possible breakthrough came as the death toll climbed to 22, with the latest figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) adding three victims to the previously confirmed 19.
All but one of the deaths occurred in Germany, the source of the enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) outbreak which has affected a dozen countries. The other victim died in Sweden.
Initial test results from a farm producing the sprouts, on the outskirts of Lueneburg in northern Germany, showed contamination by the bacteria, the minister told a press conference.
Sprouts are cultivated there from a variety of products, including lettuce, azuki beans, mung beans, fenugreek, alfafa and lentils. Some had been imported from abroad.
"It is significant that two women employees from the firm are ill with diarrhoea, and in one case EHEC has been diagnosed," the minister said.
Early indications are that the farm "is at least one of the sources of contamination," he added.
The sprouts grow in temperatures of 37 degrees celsius (around 98 degrees Fahrenheit) "which is ideal for all bacteria," the minister said.
The farm is in the small village of Bienenbuettel, some 80 kilometres south of Hamburg, one of the main cities hit by the bacteria outbreak.
Authorities in Lower-Saxony said the sprouts were delivered, either directly or through wholesalers, to restaurants in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Pomerania, Hessen and Lower-Saxony itself.
Further test results will be announced on Monday.
The European Commission meanwhile said it was not formally notified of the development.
"The German authorities simply said on Sunday they were going to circulate the information about their suspicions surrounding a sprout-producing firm on the rapid alert system system for food (RASFF)," said spokesman Federic Vincent, who deals with health
affairs.
German Health Minister Daniel Bahr, who on Sunday visited Hamburg's Eppendorf University clinic where many of the region's EHEC patients are being treated, has warned that the source of infection could still be active.
"Food health officials are working around the clock to identify the source of the infection," Bahr told the Ruhr Nachrichten newspaper on Saturday.
"But from earlier outbreaks, we know that we can't always identify the source.
"It can't be ruled out that the source of infection is still active," he added, pointing to the need for continued vigilance as authorities still counsel against eating raw tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers.
Speaking to Bild am Sonntag, Bahr said also the situation in a number of north German hospitals, especially Hamburg and Bremen, was "difficult" because of the high number of admissions, adding that other hospitals would be called upon to help.
Cases of E. coli poisoning have also been reported in more than 12 other countries, including Austria, Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States. Each was related to German travel.
Several German scientists on Sunday suggested the outbreak could be linked to bacteria found in biogas plants.
Biogas, or methane, is produced by the anaerobic digestion or fermentation of biodegradable materials such as manure, sewage and green waste.
"There are all sorts of bacteria which didn't exist before which are now produced in biogas fermentation tanks," Bernt Schottdorf, a medical analyst, told Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
"They crossbreed and mix with one another - what goes on precisely hasn't really been studied," he said, adding that 80 percent of the production waste finds its way back onto fields as fertiliser.
Ernst Guenther Hellwig, head of the veterinary and agriculture academy in Horstmar-Leer, said that because it had rained very little in the spring it was possible such fertilisers had not been washed off growing plants.
"Dangerous bacteria could be brought onto the fields this way and could contaminate vegetables," he said.
The WHO has identified the bacteria as a rare E. coli strain never before connected to an outbreak of food poisoning. It is said to be extremely aggressive and resistant to antibiotics.
The ECDC reported 1,605 cases of EHEC infection and 658 cases of the associated condition haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) on Sunday.
- AFP/de -
Maybe sooner of later spanish flu making a comeback.
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but i had already eaten raw tomatoe....and i am fine
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Originally posted by Jiani:
but i had already eaten raw tomatoe....and i am fine
I just ate colessaw from KFC. I am fine too.They are talking abt Singaporeans travelling to germany.
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Resident Evil--The Beginning
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Killer bacteria source remains elusive
BERLIN: The source of a killer bacteria remained elusive on Monday after Germany announced that initial tests on suspected organic sprouts had proved negative, while the outbreak's death toll grew to 23.
The probes were carried out on a farm in the northern state of Lower Saxony after regional agriculture minister Gerd Lindermann said a link had been found to the main areas hit by the E. coli outbreak.
Results available from 23 of the 40 samples of seeds, water, ventilation and work surfaces tested indicated they were free of the bacteria responsible for 23 deaths and more than 2,000 people falling ill, the state's agriculture ministry said.
"Investigations are continuing," the ministry said, adding that it did not expect "any short-term conclusions".
Federal Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner said Germany would maintain warnings against eating sprouts as well as tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers, particularly in the north of the country, until the origin had been pinpointed.
But Andreas Hensel, head of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, said that "it is possible we shall never be able to identify the source" of the contamination.
Aigner said investigations were continuing with checks on vegetable supply chains and producers up and down the country.
She was to travel to Luxembourg on Tuesday to attend an emergency meeting of European Union agriculture ministers which is to discuss aid for farmers who are unable to sell their vegetables because of growing consumer fears.
At the meeting, EU health ministers will review the bloc's food safety alert system to ensure that warnings have "scientific basis and proof" before becoming public, according to EU health commissioner John Dalli.
Dalli said the alert system review was requested by Spain, where farmers were hit hard by inaccurate warnings that the outbreak might be linked to Spanish organic cucumbers.
Klaus Verbeck, who runs the farm in Bienenbuettel, some 80 kilometres south of Hamburg, told the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung he uses no fertilisers for growing a variety of sprouts and had no idea how they might have been contaminated.
His farm, which produces sprouts for lettuce, azuki beans, mung beans, fenugreek, alfalfa and lentils and receives seed deliveries from several countries, has been ordered closed and all products recalled, authorities said.
"Salad sprouts are grown from seeds and water. They aren't fertilised. And there aren't any fertilisers used elsewhere on the farm," Verbeck said, alluding to the fact the E. coli bacteria may originally have come from animal droppings.
The Spanish government had sharply criticised Germany after officials in Hamburg, the epicentre of the scare, warned the outbreak might be linked to organic cucumbers imported from Spain before retracting their statement.
Similar outbreaks in Japan between 1996 and 2003 infected more than 10,000 people and left 22 dead, according to the Japanese health ministry.
Japan suspected that radish sprouts were to blame, but they found no conclusive evidence and farmers later successfully sued for compensation.
The present outbreak, which has hit at least 14 countries, including the United States, has left at least 23 people dead, according to figures compiled by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and German regional authorities.
Twenty-two died in Germany and one in Sweden - a woman who had visited Germany.
In Germany, 1,601 patients have been diagnosed with EHEC and a further 630 with haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), a life-threatening condition involving kidney malfunction, the Robert Koch Institute said.
The EHEC rate of infection grew from no more than nine a day during the first 10 days in May, to finally reach a peak of 122 on May 23 and has since slowed, the institute said.
The opposition Green party strongly criticised Chancellor Angela Merkel's government for its handling of the crisis.
"There is no crisis management. I really ask myself what the health minister and the consumer affairs minister are doing," said senior party official Renate Kuenast.
She went on to call for "national control measures" in a country where responsibility for public health matters is split between the federal government and authorities in each of the 16 states.
- AFP/de -
wonder if the business of salad restaurants are affected?
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Germany says sprouts source of killer bacteria outbreak
BERLIN - Germany has identified contaminated sprouts as the source of a killer bacteria outbreak that has claimed the lives of at least 30 people, the head of the national public health institute said Friday.
"It's the sprouts," the president of the Robert Koch Institute, Reinhard Burger, told a news conference on the outbreak of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) in northern Germany.
"People who ate sprouts were found to be nine times more likely to have bloody diarrhoea or other signs of EHEC infection than those who did not," he said speaking of a study done of people who fell ill after eating in restaurants.
- AFP/ir -
Originally posted by QX179R:
Germany says sprouts source of killer bacteria outbreak
BERLIN - Germany has identified contaminated sprouts as the source of a killer bacteria outbreak that has claimed the lives of at least 30 people, the head of the national public health institute said Friday.
"It's the sprouts," the president of the Robert Koch Institute, Reinhard Burger, told a news conference on the outbreak of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) in northern Germany.
"People who ate sprouts were found to be nine times more likely to have bloody diarrhoea or other signs of EHEC infection than those who did not," he said speaking of a study done of people who fell ill after eating in restaurants.
- AFP/ir
i ate it! but i am fine :D -
i had travel to germany, ate raw tomatoe, and i am fine :D
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Originally posted by Jiani:
i ate it! but i am fine :Djiani...no worries...also make sure u wash your hands before eating...establish good habits of cleanliness...do u brush your teeth after every meal?
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Originally posted by Fcukpap:
jiani...no worries...also make sure u wash your hands before eating...establish good habits of cleanliness...do u brush your teeth after every meal?
u becoming like my parent liao -
Thailand finds E. coli in European cabbage
BANGKOK - THAILAND said on Saturday that it had detected E. coli in cabbage imported from Europe and was checking whether it was the lethal strain involved in a killer outbreak in northern Germany.
The country, which had a false alarm about a shipment of European avocados earlier in the week, has urged the public not to panic, noting that there are several types of E. coli.
'We need three to five days to check on the bacteria's strain,' said Sathaporn Wongcharoen, director general of the Medical Science Department of the Public Health Ministry.
On Friday Thailand said that E. coli found in avocados a day earlier was not the deadly strain that has swept Europe in recent weeks.
German officials have said they are now confident that sprouts grown at a farm in the north of the country are the source of the highly virulent strain of bacteria that has killed at least 33 and left some 3,000 ill.
All confirmed fatalities, three of which were reported on Friday, have been in Germany except for one woman who died in Sweden after visiting Germany.
-- AFP
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Originally posted by Jiani:
u becoming like my parent liao
They will nag at you?
