E. coli outbreak in Europe
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Thats why never eat veges raw. Next time fruits also must cook liao
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I don't eat raw food.
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German minister: more deaths possible in outbreak
BERLIN - GERMANY'S health minister is warning that the number of deaths from an E. coli outbreak may increase - but he's hopeful that the worst is over.
The world's deadliest E. coli outbreak, which officials have traced to German-grown sprouts, has so far killed 33 people and sickened nearly 3,100.
Health Minister Daniel Bahr was quoted on Saturday as telling a newspaper that 'the wave is gradually abating - there is reason to hope the worst is now over.' He said it is unlikely the outbreak will flare up again.
But he is cautioning that 'further deaths are not ruled out, as painful as that is.'
Health officials said on Friday that sprouts from a farm in northern Germany caused the outbreak, which prompted many in Europe to shun vegetables over recent weeks.
-- AP
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I saw in newspaper they found the source bean sprout.
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E. coli death toll reaches 35; Germany warns of more
BERLIN: The death toll from a killer bug outbreak centred on Germany rose on Sunday to at least 35 as the government warned of more to come, despite the source having been identified and new infections falling.
"More fatalities cannot be ruled out, painful though it is to say so," Health Minister Daniel Bahr told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, two days after the source was identified as vegetable sprouts grown in northern Germany.
"The continuing fall in the number of new infections gives grounds for optimism. But that does not rule out more cases of EHEC (enterohaemorrhagic E. coli)," he said.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany's national disease agency, said on Sunday meanwhile that the death toll had risen to 35, but that the rate of new infections had continued to abate.
"The outbreak is receding," RKI spokesman Guenther Dettweiler told AFP.
All but one of the 35 deaths from EHEC poisoning have been in Germany, with the other being a woman in Sweden who had recently travelled to Germany.
Some 3,255 people have also fallen sick in 14 European countries plus the United States and Canada, according to the World Health Organisation. All but five cases were in people who lived or had visited Germany.
Many are seriously ill with bloody diarrhoea and potentially life-threatening conditions such as haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), a serious kidney ailment.
The WHO said on Saturday that 812 people had HUS, 773 of them in Germany.
In Germany, some 100 patients have such bad kidney damage that they need an organ transplant "or will require dialysis treatment for the rest of their lives", said Karl Lauterbach, health expert for the Social Democrats party.
After several frantic weeks of searching, German authorities on Friday said they had identified the source as being vegetable sprouts from an organic farm in Lower Saxony, northern Germany.
The farm has been closed and all its products recalled. The farm cultivated sprouts from a variety of products including lettuce, azuki beans, mung beans, fenugreek, alfalfa and lentils.
Authorities have said though that the farm in the northern village of Bienenbuettel had done nothing wrong, with Gert Lindemann, Lower Saxony agriculture minister, saying it had "high hygiene standards".
With German authorities only late last week dropping advice, particularly in northern Germany, to avoid uncooked tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce, the scare has cost European farmers hundreds of millions of euros (dollars).
The RKI still recommends not eating raw vegetable sprouts.
Particularly badly hit were Spanish producers after Germany initially and erroneously blamed cucumbers grown there.
The European Commission has offered 210 million euros ($303 million) to farmers affected across Europe.
Russia also banned the import of all fresh vegetables from the whole of the 27-nation European Union. Moscow agreed at a summit with the EU on Friday to lift the ban.
- AFP/de -
New E. coli sicknesses declining
BERLIN - THE number of people falling sick as a result of E. coli contamination has slowed to a trickle, Germany's national disease control center said on Tuesday, even as the death toll from the outbreak rose by one to 37.
The Robert Koch Institute said a total of 3,235 people in Germany have been reported ill, only seven more than the previous day.
Germany's health minister has cautioned that even though the outbreak is waning further deaths are possible. The local council in the northern town of Celle said a two-year-old boy died overnight, news agency DAPD reported. German authorities have narrowed the source of the outbreak to vegetable sprouts from a farm in the north of the country.
Thirty-six people in Germany and one in Sweden have now died in what has been the deadliest outbreak of E. coli ever. The crisis has devastated farmers across Europe as frightened consumers shunned vegetables after German authorities initally advised people against eating cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce.
On Tuesday, the European Union approved a 210 million euro (S$373 million) compensation package for fruit and vegetable farmers.
EU Farm Commissioner Dacian Ciolos said the compensation was 'an important signal for fresh vegetable growers because I was very keen to show that Europe can react quickly' to the outbreak. Mr Ciolos initially proposed 150 million euros for struggling farmers. But under pressure from big producers like Spain, Italy and France, he had to offer more help. -- AP