E coli in France: seven children in hospital as beefburgers blamed

French health agency says all but two of sick children ate ground-beef burgers sold by Lidl Health authorities in France have ordered a recall of beefburgers sold by the supermarket chain Lidl after seven children became infected with E coli bacteria, though officials ruled out a link between those infections and the deadly outbreak centred on Germany that has killed 39 people. Daniel Lenoir, head of the health agency in France’s Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, said: “We are certain it’s not the same bacterial strain that was identified on sprouts in Germany.” . Lenoir said the seven children were in hospital with infections stemming from E coli, which causes vomiting and severe, often bloody, diarrhoea. He added that five of the children had eaten frozen ground beef patties that were made in a French factory and sold by the German supermarket chain Lidl. The beef for the burgers came from farms in France, Germany and the Netherlands, according to SEB, the French manufacturer that supplied the meat. The recall affected about 10 tonnes of meat, said Guy Lamorlette, chief executive of SEB, who added that the burgers had been analysed before being delivered to supermarket distributors. The family of one of the children in hospital took a box of the burgers to health authorities for analysis, according to Jerome Gresland, co-director of Lidl France. All the meat supplied by SEB had been removed from the supermarket chain’s shelves. Frédéric Vincent, spokesman for the European commission, said the outbreak in France was not as serious as the one in Germany. He said the strain found in France was “discovered regularly”. There were 3,500 cases of E coli in the EU last year, he said, 93 of which were in France. Vincent said the commission was waiting for more information, keen to avoid a repeat of the situation when Spanish cucumbers were wrongly blamed for the German E coli outbreak, costing Spanish farmers significant income. The E coli outbreak in Germany was traced last week to sprouts from a farm in the north of the country. There have been more than 3,000 infections reported so far but German health officials said the number of new infections was tailing off. They advised consumers not to eat any vegetable sprouts, as they still needed to determine how the bacteria reached the farm. E coli France Europe Germany The meat industry Food Farming guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 16, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.