Germany Looks at Sprout Seeds, Farm Workers for E. Coli Disease
German authorities are investigating whether a month-old outbreak of E. coli stemmed from infected seeds used at a sprout farm or whether a worker at the business was infected and spread bacteria to the sprouts.
“The farm imported their seeds from different countries in Asia and Europe and the first option we’re looking at is whether the seeds were already contaminated,” Natascha Manski, a spokeswoman for the German state of Lower Saxony, where the sprout farm is located, said by phone today. “The second option is that one of the employees took the bacteria into the farm.”
The world’s deadliest-ever outbreak of E. coli has killed at least 36 people and infected 3,332, mainly in Germany, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said on its website today. Germany lifted a warning against eating raw tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce on June 10 after concluding that tainted vegetable sprouts caused the E. coli infection.
The city of Hamburg, branded by German officials as the epicenter of the outbreak, is advising residents to avoid eating all sprouts, including home-grown ones, because the seeds used to produce the vegetables may be the cause of the outbreak.
So far, 1,053 people in Hamburg have been infected with enterohemorrhagic E. coli bacteria, known as EHEC, while 181 have contracted its potentially fatal kidney complication, known as hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, the city-state said in a statement today. The number of EHEC cases rose by 14 in the past 24 hours, with no new HUS patients, it said. The growth in new cases continues to slow, officials said.
Possible Source
Lower Saxony has identified organic sprouts from the Gaertnerhof Bienenbuettel farm near Uelzen, Germany, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) southeast of Hamburg, as a possible source of the outbreak. Produce from the farm has been recalled and its customers informed.
The neighboring state of North Rhine-Westphalia said on June 10 that investigators of a local household’s outbreak made the first link of the aggressive O104 E. coli bacteria strain to sprouts produced at the Lower Saxony site.
Gaertnerhof makes sprouts based on a variety of vegetables and has about 18 employees, according to its website. Some of the workers have fallen ill, officials have said.
“One of our topics is to focus on the products the employees of the farm have eaten with a focus on different kinds of sprouts, and also to conclude which employees got the disease and the ones that didn’t,” Thomas Spieker, a spokesman for Lower Saxony’s Health Ministry, said by phone from the state capital, Hanover.
“While nobody knows how these sprouts were infected, it is also a possibility that the seeds were contaminated,” Spieker said. “The warning against eating all raw sprouts in Germany is still valid.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Niklas Magnusson in Hamburg at nmagnusson1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Angela Cullen at acullen8@bloomberg.net
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