World Health Organization: Warning of a Worlwide E.coli OUTBREAK comes from super-toxic new strain! at least 1,600 people infected and killed 18 | |
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(OP) User ID: 1376790 Canada 06/03/2011 10:44 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
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deathr0
(OP) User ID: 1376790 Canada 06/03/2011 10:47 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: World Health Organization: Warning of a Worlwide E.coli OUTBREAK comes from super-toxic new strain! at least 1,600 people infected and killed 18 |
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(OP) User ID: 1376790 Canada 06/03/2011 10:55 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: World Health Organization: Warning of a Worlwide E.coli OUTBREAK comes from super-toxic new strain! at least 1,600 people infected and killed 18 Toxic new E. coli strain behind Europe outbreak World Health Organization says strain appears to be particularly lethal, mutant combo, though CDC questions uniqueness; 18 dead, 1,600 ill so far (A) LONDON - A super-toxic bug is causing the frightening food poisoning outbreak in Europe that has sickened at least 1,600 people and killed 18, researchers and global health officials said Thursday. The new E. coli strain that is believed to have contaminated salad vegetables was analyzed by Chinese and German scientists. It contains several genes that cause antibiotic resistance and is similar to a strain that causes serious diarrhea and is found in the Central African Republic, according to a statement from the Shenzhen, China-based laboratory, BGI. Those scientists were working together with the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. "This is a unique strain that has never been isolated from patients before," Hilde Kruse, a food safety expert at the World Health Organization, told The Associated Press. The new strain has "various characteristics that make it more virulent and toxin-producing" than the many E. coli strains people naturally carry in their intestines. Preliminary genetic sequencing suggests the strain is a never before seen combination of two different E. coli bacteria, with aggressive genes that could explain why the outbreak appears to be so massive and dangerous, the agency said. However, Dr. Robert Tauxe, a foodborne disease expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, questioned whether the strain is entirely new and said it had previously caused a single case in Korea. He said genetic fingerprints may vary a little but that "this strain is rare enough that a lot of people haven't heard of it." Researchers have so far been unable to pinpoint the food source of the illness, which has now spread to at least 10 European countries and fanned uncertainty about eating tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce. The germ has caused 499 to develop a kidney failure complication. Germany is hardest hit. Fearful of the outbreak spreading east to Russia, the country extended a ban on vegetables to the entire European Union from just Germany and Spain, a move the bloc quickly called disproportionate. Kruse said it's not uncommon for bacteria to continually mutate, evolving and swapping genes. It is difficult to explain where the new strain came from, she said, but strains of bacteria from both humans and animals easily trade genes, similar to how animal viruses like Ebola sometimes jump into humans. "One should think of an animal source," Kruse said. "Many animals are hosts of various types of toxin-producing E. coli." Some scientists suspect the deadly E. coli might have originated in contaminated manure used to fertilize vegetables. Previous E. coli outbreaks have mainly hit children and the elderly, but the European outbreak is disproportionately affecting adults, especially women. Kruse said there might be something particular about the bacteria strain that makes it more dangerous for adults. But she cautioned that since people with milder cases probably aren't seeking medical help, officials don't know just how big the outbreak is. "It's hard to say how virulent (this new E. coli strain) is because we just don't know the real number of people affected." Nearly all the sick people either live in Germany or recently traveled there. British officials announced four new cases, including three Britons who recently visited Germany and a German person on holiday in England. The WHO recommends that to avoid food-borne illnesses people wash their hands before eating or cooking food, separating raw and cooked meat from other foods, thoroughly cooking food, and washing fruits and vegetables, especially if eaten raw. Experts also recommend peeling raw fruits and vegetables if possible. Russia had earlier this week banned fresh imports from Spain and Germany, but it expanded the ban Thursday to include the entire EU. The United Arab Emirates issued a temporary ban on cucumbers from Spain, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. Lyubov Voropayeva, spokeswoman for the Russian Agency for the Supervision of Consumer Rights, told the AP the Russian ban has been imposed immediately and indefinitely. No fatalities or infections have yet been reported in Russia. "How many more lives of European citizens does it take for European officials to tackle this problem?" the agency's chief Gennady Onishchenko said to the state-owned RIA Novosti news agency. Frederic Vincent, a spokesman for the EU's Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner John Dalli, said Thursday that the European Commission would write to Russia to demand further clarification. The Italian farmers association Coldiretti criticized the ban as "absurd." One expert said the fact the strain is new may have complicated the response to the outbreak. "Officials may not have had the correct tests to detect it, which may explain the initial delay in reporting," said Paul Hunter, a professor of health protection at the University of East Anglia in England. He said the number of new cases would likely slow to a trickle in the next few days. The incubation period for this type of E. coli is about three to eight days, and most people recover within 10 days. [link to www.cbsnews.com] |
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(OP) User ID: 1376790 Canada 06/04/2011 08:03 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: World Health Organization: Warning of a Worlwide E.coli OUTBREAK comes from super-toxic new strain! at least 1,600 people infected and killed 18 Mystery deepens over E.coli outbreak APP June 4, 2011, 9:32 pm An outbreak of killer E. coli that has spread to 12 countries and killed 19 people may be linked to a Hamburg festival in May and could have caused a 20th death, according to reports. As authorities continued to hunt the source of the killer bug, Germany's national disease centre, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), is looking closely at a harbour festival that took place in Hamburg on May 6-8. The weekly newspaper Focus said on Saturday the festival drew 1.5 million visitors from Germany and abroad, and noted that the first reported case of E. coli infection followed just a week later in the city's university hospital. German media also said on Saturday a man in his 50s who died in Brandenberg may be the 20th victim, but the cause of death was uncertain because he had several other infections as well as E. coli. The latest confirmed death was of an 80-year-old woman in the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Friday. She succumbed as German authorities were still warning consumers off raw vegetables, despite the EU's Reference Laboratory for E. coli in Rome saying scientific tests had failed to support a link to the outbreak. Faced with uncertainty over the source of the outbreak, reports said police were investigating a possible deliberate act and were checking two restaurants in the northern town of Lubeck, one in which 17 diners fell ill and another in which eight women were sickened. On Thursday, German authorities said the number of new infections appeared to be stabilising. But Reinhard Brunkhorst, president of the German Nephrology Society, added: "We are dealing here... with the biggest epidemic caused by bacteria in recent decades." All but one of the fatalities since the outbreak of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) poisoning began last month have occurred in Germany. A patient who died in Sweden had recently returned from Germany. Regional German health authorities have reported more than 2000 cases of people falling ill with EHEC poisoning, with symptoms including stomach cramps, diarrhoea, fever and vomiting. The fact that a large majority are female suggests that the source is "probably something that women prefer more than men", Andrea Ellis, an epidemiologist at the World Health Organisation's (WHO) department of food safety, said in Geneva. In some cases the infection can lead to bloody diarrhoea and potentially life-threatening conditions such as haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), a kidney disease. At least 552 people, 520 of them in Germany, have HUS, according to the WHO, with 10 other European countries plus the United States reporting HUS or EHEC infections. The outbreak was "the largest epidemic of HUS to have occurred anywhere in the world", according to Francois-Xavier Weill, head of France's National Reference Centre for E. coli. Britain confirmed four more cases of poisoning on Friday, bringing the total number of infected in the country to 11. Each is related to German travel and three of the patients have HUS, the Health Protection Agency said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel meanwhile defended last week's false cucumber alert in a phone call on Thursday with Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, saying authorities were "duty-bound to inform the public at all times". The advisory, retracted this week, left tens of thousands of tonnes of Spanish produce unsold, costing Spanish growers an estimated 200 million euros ($A272.15 million) a week. Both Berlin and Madrid said they had agreed to seek compensation at the European level. Hungary, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said it aimed to hold an extraordinary meeting of the bloc's farm ministers to discuss the outbreak, most likely on June 17. With no clarity on the source of the mysterious bacteria, the outbreak has led some countries such as Russia and Lebanon to ban vegetables from the EU, in moves criticised by the 27-member bloc. [link to au.news.yahoo.com] |
deathr0
(OP) User ID: 1376790 Canada 06/04/2011 08:13 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: World Health Organization: Warning of a Worlwide E.coli OUTBREAK comes from super-toxic new strain! at least 1,600 people infected and killed 18 What a weird idea scraping ALL EU raw foods supply with no reason or proof. when we all know the current Summer is the worst till long time for Farmers buisness. Lets scrap the food we will eat rice from china! oups i forgot Almost all China Rice feild are destroyed on the severe Drought in southern china.. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 1414149 United States 06/04/2011 08:20 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |