A Spanish company is suing the city of Hamburg for more than €2 million after its cucumbers were wrongly blamed for a deadly E.coli outbreak last spring, officials said Thursday.
The European Food Safety Agency on Tuesday strengthened its claim that a batch of fenugreek seeds imported from Egypt was likely behind the deadly E. coli outbreak that killed 50 people, most of them in Germany.
Fenugreek seeds exported from Egypt to France and Germany may have caused an E. coli outbreak that has killed 48 people in Europe, the European Food Safety Authority reported.
A strain of E. coli bacteria which killed dozens of people in Germany is a genetic mix whose ability to stick to intestinal walls may have made it so lethal, a study in The Lancet said on Wednesday.
As Germany’s deadly E. coli outbreak slowly peters out, Health Minister Daniel Bahr says he’s concentrating on streamlining how healthcare providers report and track diseases to be better prepared for the future.
Hamburgers possibly made with German meat are being removed from supermarket shelves across France after six children were hospitalized with E. coli infections. But the bacteria appears unlinked to Germany's deadly outbreak.
German vegetable growers who have seen their businesses badly hit by the EHEC E.coli outbreak as people avoid cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce, have been told they will get half of what they have lost in governmental aid.
The German authorities on Tuesday said a two-year-old boy became the first child to die in an outbreak of a virulent strain of E. coli bacteria, taking the death toll to at least 37.
Karl Lauterbach, health spokesman for the opposition Social Democrats, has warned that some of those who have fallen ill in the E. coli epidemic could face severe health problems.
German officials say that the likely source of the deadly E. coli epidemic, a vegetable sprout farm in Lower Saxony, will probably not face criminal prosecution.
German officials on Friday said they had found the first direct evidence of deadly E. coli bacteria on vegetable sprouts thought to have killed 33 people and left over 3,000 ill.
The death toll from an outbreak of killer bacteria centred on Germany jumped to at least 30 on Thursday, as EU and Russian leaders got ready to cross swords over Moscow's ban on EU vegetables.
German Health Minister Daniel Bahr said on Wednesday the nation's authorities expected more deaths from E. coli bacteria, but there were signs the virulent outbreak was peaking. The EU has called for Germany to accept outside help.
Germany's killer bacteria outbreak has people running scared in the northern city of Lübeck, where restaurants are empty and vegetables, blamed for the contamination, are withering away at market stalls.
The death toll from an outbreak of E. coli bacteria poisoning centred on northern Germany rose to 24 after two women, aged 88 and 74, died in Lower Saxony, authorities said on Tuesday.
After mistakenly blaming Spanish cucumbers and organic sprouts for a deadly E. coli outbreak, criticism of the German authorities is mounting. The Local looks at who’s handling the health crisis.
Officials insisted Tuesday morning that the bean sprouts from a Lower Saxony farm are still chief suspects in the deadly E. coli outbreak, despite the first batch of laboratory tests turning up negative.
Germany will maintain a health warnings for sprouts as well as tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers despite initial negative tests for deadly E. coli bacteria, Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner said Monday.
Bean sprouts have emerged as the new chief suspect in the hunt for the cause of the deadly E. coli bacteria outbreak, with health authorities issuing a fresh warning on Sunday.
Scientists have yet to trace the source of an E. coli outbreak that has spread to 12 countries and killed at least 19 people, mainly in Germany, as experts on Saturday ruled out links to a Hamburg festival.
German health authorities scrambling to find the source of a deadly E. coli outbreak are zeroing in on a restaurant in Lübeck. Reports also say a harbour festival that took place in Hamburg in May could be linked to the killer bug.
The United States is inspecting all imports of cucumbers, lettuce and tomatoes from Germany and Spain, officials said Friday, as the outbreak spread to 12 countries.
At Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, health authorities are searching to find the source of the country's virulent E. coli (EHEC) outbreak. Microbiologist Lothar Beutin, head of its reference laboratory, describes the race to find the cause.
The E. coli outbreak that has killed at least 18 people appears to be stabilising, a senior German doctor said on Friday, as police investigated two food distributors and a restaurant owner in Hamburg.
