Germany lifts EHEC warning against cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes

[Gert van der Hoek]

Press conference with "new findings" later this morning.


June 10, 2011

Germany lifts EHEC warning against cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes

In Germany the warning against eating raw tomatoes,
Cucumber and lettuce because of the epidemic EHEC will be lifted, according to media reports on Friday.

The warning for sprouts is maintained however.


http://www.bielertagblatt.ch/News/Ausland/208536

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: Germany lifts EHEC warning against cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes

E. coli vegetable warnings to be lifted

Published: 10 Jun

German officials are set on Friday to lift a warning against eating raw tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce following an E. coli outbreak that has claimed the lives of at least 30 people.

Citing government sources in Berlin, the DPA news agency said a warning against sprouts will likely remain in place because heath officials still suspect a Lower Saxony farm as a source of the deadly bacteria. A press conference scheduled later on Friday is expected to provide more details.

Vegetable producers throughout Europe have for weeks complained about the warnings, which they say are costing them hundreds of millions of euros in lost sales. But German officials have not been able to find a source for the enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC).

But although the sprout farm is still suspected as being a nexus of the outbreak that has left around 2,600 people ill, some health officials now suspect the bacteria is being spread through human-to-human contact or through food servers, making it much more difficult to trace.

The Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung reported Friday that officials are zeroing in on a catering company that in late May supplied a Göttingen party with food.

One of the caterers had a close relative who had been previously infected with EHEC, likely at a Frankfurt canteen, and authorities are trying to determine if the bacteria had somehow been passed between them, the newspaper reported.

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