E coli source hunted as growers fear sales slump

Complex market for salad makes origin of E coli outbreak harder to pinpoint, say scientists Scientists have warned that there is a desperate need to pinpoint the source of the E coli outbreak that has already claimed the lives of 17 people in Germany and infected 1,800 others around the world. On Friday, four new cases were identified in Britain, bringing the total here to 11. However, German authorities say that the number of new cases reported each day there has now started to decline. “This could bubble along for some time yet unless we find the source and stop it infecting the food chain,” said Dr Paul Wigley of Liverpool University. Most evidence suggests that some type of salad product is the source. “That in itself is unusual,” added Wigley. “Eighty per cent of food poisoning cases are usually traced to meat or poultry.” The fact that infected vegetables may be responsible for the cases of E coli that affected Germany last week, before spreading round the rest of Europe, makes the hunt for the source more difficult, Wigley said. “Salad products are grown and shipped across Europe. Meat or poultry tend to have more localised markets.” On Saturday, attention focused on a German restaurant, Kartoffel-Keller (Potato Cellar), in the Baltic port of Luebeck, which the local newspaper claimed had been identified by scientists as a possible infection point, after one person died and 17 others fell sick. In Britain, the National Farmers Union said that it had spoken to all of Britain’s major retailers to seek assurances they were backing British growers and paying a proper price for their products. Most were behaving sensibly, said a spokesman. “They are not using this unfortunate situation as an excuse to drop prices to British growers.” However, severe problems face the growers of cucumbers, thought to be the most likely source of the outbreak. Derek Hargreaves of the Cucumber Growers’ Association told the BBC on Thursday that he feared the outbreak would affect British producers if the source of the E coli remained unknown. “If this keeps rolling on and the Germans don’t find the source of the outbreak, then obviously people are going to say, ‘Well, there’s no point in listening to experts.’ People will stop buying the salads.” E coli Farming Germany Microbiology Health Robin McKie guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 4, 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.