‘It’s the sprouts,’ German health official declares
Posted June 10, 2011 5:45 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Europeans finally got the answer they were waiting for Friday after a new and super-toxic strain of E.coli claimed 29 lives and sickened nearly 3,000 others: “It’s the sprouts.”
Reinhard Burger, president of the Robert Koch Institute, made the statement Friday and authorities have now lifted the warning against eating cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce.
Investigators have determined the sprouts from an organic farm in Lower Saxony were the source of the outbreak despite the fact the bacteria weren’t detected in testing last week.
The German farm in the northern village of Bienenbuettel, between Hamburg and Hannover, was shut down Sunday and all its produce recalled as health officials awaited test results. Two staff members were also infected with E.coli.
Burger said the epidemiological investigation of the pattern of the outbreak produced enough evidence for investigators to pinpoint the sprouts as the source. He warned some people have still be consuming these sprouts and that the crisis isn’t yet over.
Germany was hit the hardest by the outbreak – 2,808 fell ill there and 722 of them developed a serious complication that can cause kidney failure.
With files from the Canadian Press.
