UPDATE: Source Of E. Coli Outbreak Determined
June 7, 2011 Tweethttp://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
UPDATE: On Friday, June 10, German officials announced that they have determined that bean sprouts are the source of the E. coli outbreak. A small organic farm is believed to be the source of contamination. With the cultprit being determined, the government lifted a warning against eating raw tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumbers, according to international news source, AFP.
German authorities are trying to determine if the E. coli came from infected seeds used at a farm or whether an infected worker at the operation was the cause of the spread of bacteria to the sprouts, according to a June 14 Bloomberg article.
“The farm imported their seeds from different countries in Asia and Europe and the first option we’re looking at is whether the seeds were already contaminated,” Natascha Manski, a spokeswoman for the German state of Lower Saxony, where the sprout farm is located, told Bloomberg. “The second option is that one of the employees took the bacteria into the farm.”
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Story from June 7, 2011
The advisory, first issued over two weeks ago, has cost vegetable growers in Europe hundreds of millions of euros (dollars) in lost sales and sparked diplomatic spats across Europe.
An expert at the World Health Organization (WHO) said time is running out for German investigators to find the source of the world’s deadliest E. coli outbreak, which has spread fear across Europe and cost farmers millions in exports.
German officials are still seeking the cause of the outbreak weeks after it began May 2, the Associated Press reported today. In the last week, they have wrongly accused Spanish cucumbers and then German sprouts of sparking the crisis that has killed 22 people and infected more than 2,400. “If we don’t know the likely culprit in a week’s time, we may never know the cause,” Dr. Guenael Rodier, director of communicable diseases expert at WHO, told the AP.
He said the contaminated vegetables have likely disappeared from the market and it would be difficult for German investigators to link patients to contaminated produce weeks after they first became infected. “Right now, (Germans) are interviewing people about foods they ate about a month ago,” he said. “It’s very hard to know how accurate that information is.”
Without more details about what exact foods link sick patients, Rodier said it would be very difficult to narrow down the cause. “The final proof will come from the lab,” he said. “But first you need the epidemiological link to the suspected food.”
Other experts issued harsher criticism of the German investigation, the AP reported, and wondered why it was taking so long to identify the source. “If you gave us 200 cases and 5 days, we should be able to solve this outbreak,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, whose team has contained numerous food-borne outbreaks in the U.S. Osterholm described the German effort as “erratic” and “a disaster” and said officials should have done more detailed patient interviews as soon as the epidemic began.
The medical director of Berlin’s Charite Hospitals, Ulrich Frei, said it took the national disease control center weeks to send his hospital questionnaires for E.coli patients to fill out about their eating habits. Osterholm said the Germans should have been able to trace cases of illness to infected produce by now and that tests on current produce won’t be helpful. “It’s like looking at camera footage of a traffic intersection today to see what caused an accident three weeks ago,” he said. “This is an outbreak response that is not being led by the data.”
On Tuesday, the EU health chief warned Germany against premature — and inaccurate — conclusions on the source of contaminated food. In outbreaks, it is not unusual for certain foods to be suspected at first, then ruled out. In 2008 in the U.S., raw tomatoes were initially implicated in a nationwide salmonella outbreak. Consumers shunned tomatoes, costing the tomato industry millions. Weeks later, jalapeno peppers grown in Mexico were determined to be the cause.
In the current E. coli outbreak, tests are continuing on sprouts from an organic farm in northern Germany, but have so far come back negative. Authorities in Germany initially, but falsely, blamed imported Spanish cucumbers. Growers have seen their produce shunned, with Russia and Qatar among states that have since applied temporary bans on fresh-produce imports from European states. “Spanish fruit and vegetable exports were still not back to normal on Monday,” the country’s main agricultural export association, FEPEX, told Reuters, estimating losses to the sector at around 200 million euros ($290 million) per week.
“Russia’s decision has negative repercussions, there are Spanish trucks blocked at the border,” a spokeswoman for the association said. “Exports to Germany are practically paralyzed. In addition to vegetables, fruits have begun to also be badly affected, not only because exports were frozen all of last week, but because this situation has led a fall in prices of 35% since May 27, according to estimates by producers” in the southern region of Andalucia, she said. “The demand for fruits and vegetables has not recovered and that is due in large part to the lack of a clear and strong correction by German and (EU) authorities,” the spokeswoman said.
Growers in the U.S. should be paying attention to what’s happening in Europe, said Mosbah Kushad, an associate professor in the Crop Sciences Department at the University of Illinois. Laboratory analysis of the bacteria showed that it is a new strain referred to as E. coli O-104, possibly with an acquired ability to infect large numbers of people. The WHO and scientists at the Beijing Genomics Institute have said that the new strain “has never been seen in an outbreak situation before” and that it is “highly infectious and toxic.”
The familiar E. coli O157 H7 was first discovered in California in the mid 1980s when a women ate an insufficiently cooked hamburger from a fast food restaurant. Since then, this bacterium has caused millions of infection and hundreds of fatalities around the world, with billions of dollars in economic losses. If this European variant is new and can cause large numbers of infections, as has been suggested, Kushad says it will have a huge impact on food industries worldwide. E. coli travels very fast in contaminated foods, especially raw foods such as fruits and vegetables, because it can be killed only by heat and chemical treatment. With food commerce being more global than ever before, it is expected that the new strain may reach the U.S. within a few months, he added.
This new discovery highlights the need for everyone in the produce industry to be more vigilant about food safety and good agricultural practices, says Kushad, who advised growers that it is not too late for this season to evaluate their operations and to look at where they can improve food safety. Here are a few areas that may be of concern, according to Kushad.
1. Water and water sources. It is highly recommended that you send samples for analysis at the beginning of the growing season, in the middle, and at the end. Have the samples evaluated for total coliform, fecal coliform, and E. coli. Run the analysis even if you use city water, and remember that you cannot use surface or pond water to wash produce unless it has been properly cleaned and tested. Chlorinate well water if needed, and use the information below in the equipment sanitation section.
2. Worker hygiene. Workers need to be trained on how to follow good agricultural practices. They need to wash their hands with soap (anti-bacterial soap works best; or use unscented soap) and potable water and dry their hands with disposable paper towels. Train workers to lather their hands, their nails, and between their fingers for at least 15 seconds; they must wash their hands every time they leave their work place, even if they did not go the restroom. Also make sure that there is adequate signage in the washing area in the language that the workers can read and understand.
3. Equipment sanitation. Wash equipment at the end of each work day with a chlorine solution or other sanitizers followed by water only to prevent rust formation. To sanitize equipment, you may use hot water first, then wash with a 200 ppm chlorine solution. For fruits and vegetables, use 50 to 100 ppm chlorine solution followed by potable water wash. Make sure to check water pH and water temperature. Chlorine works best at pH lower than 7.4 because chlorine forms mostly hypochlorous acid at low pH and hypochlorite ions at high pH above 7.8. Hypochlorous acid is the more effective sanitizer, whereas the ions are more oxidizers. Also, high organic matter reduces chlorine concentration, so check the level of chlorine every two to four hours, depending on the crop you want to sanitize. Temperature also affects chlorine levels in solution. High temperatures increase chlorine volatility, so your water temperature should be around 50 to 55F for better chlorine effectiveness and for keeping the produce relatively cool.
4. There are many other areas in your operation that may need attention, such as compost, grazing animals, your neighbors’ raw sludge runoff, or other factors that may affect the safety of the produce you grow.
“Remember,” Kushad concludes, “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.”
For more information on lesser known e. coli types, click.