Germany admits locally-grown bean sprouts are cause of E.coli outbreak
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New data released in Germany strongly suggest that it is locally produced bean sprouts that are the source of the deadly E. coli outbreak after all.
"It's the bean sprouts," said Reinhard Burger, head of Germany's centre for disease control.
"People who ate sprouts were nine times more likely to have bloody diarrhoea than those who did not," he added.
Officials initially blamed the E. coli, which has killed 29 people, on imported cucumbers from Spain, then the bean sprouts before wrongly claiming that it wasn't the bean sprouts.
Mr Burger, who heads the Robert Koch Institute, warned that the outbreak was not over. He told reporters on Friday that even though no tests of the sprouts from a farm in Lower Saxony had come back positive, the epidemiological investigation of the pattern of the outbreak had produced enough evidence to draw the conclusion that it was in fact the bean sprouts that were making people ill.
The institute, he added, was lifting its warning against eating cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce, but keeping it in place for the sprouts.
Some 3,000 people have been taken ill with the German outbreak of E. coli, which involves a previously unknown strain of the bacterium.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13725953
"It's the bean sprouts," said Reinhard Burger, head of Germany's centre for disease control.
"People who ate sprouts were nine times more likely to have bloody diarrhoea than those who did not," he added.
Officials initially blamed the E. coli, which has killed 29 people, on imported cucumbers from Spain, then the bean sprouts before wrongly claiming that it wasn't the bean sprouts.
Mr Burger, who heads the Robert Koch Institute, warned that the outbreak was not over. He told reporters on Friday that even though no tests of the sprouts from a farm in Lower Saxony had come back positive, the epidemiological investigation of the pattern of the outbreak had produced enough evidence to draw the conclusion that it was in fact the bean sprouts that were making people ill.
The institute, he added, was lifting its warning against eating cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce, but keeping it in place for the sprouts.
Some 3,000 people have been taken ill with the German outbreak of E. coli, which involves a previously unknown strain of the bacterium.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13725953
