Outbreak is new form of E. coli(bacterium)

[Deleted member 473940]

The E. coli outbreak in Germany is a new form of the bacterium, researchers and public health experts believe.

The infection can cause the deadly complication - haemolytic-uraemic syndrome (HUS) - affecting the blood and kidneys.

More than 1,500 people have been infected and 18 have died: 17 in Germany and one in Sweden.

In the UK, three British nationals have been infected - all had visited Germany.
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Source

 

[SamAsh07]

no info on how it's caused, yet? Hm.

 

[Deleted member 473940]

Well, from reading the article, cant see what caused it.
Probably simple mutation.

 

[Miss Panda]

This situation is getting very bad now, too many deaths over such a wide area (no deaths as a result of this are acceptable but you know what I mean) . The Russians have banned all EU vegetable imports. And the Spanish cucumber farmers are threatening to sue the Germans.

 

[Hop2089]

Nobody will ever find the source of contamination even with the EU's even more in depth food safety standards and investigation practices.

Hopefully it stays in Germany, I don't want to see it in Asia or NA for example.

 

[Deleted member 473940]

Nobody will ever find the source of contamination even with the EU's even more in depth food safety standards and investigation practices.

Hopefully it stays in Germany, I don't want to see it in Asia or NA for example.

It will get out of hands if it does reach asia.
I fear however that it will..

 

[Minox]

Oh so this is the yearly scare from the newspapers?

Whatever happened to the oh-so-dangerous swine & bird flues?

 

[Deleted member 473940]

Oh so this is the yearly scare from the newspapers?

Whatever happened to the oh-so-dangerous swine & bird flues?

Well, not many have died with Swine Flu. the problem was constant mutation.
Not reliable, but number of deaths by swine flu.

This however killed 18 people already.

 

[SamAsh07]

There will be a vaccine at some point of time, and when it's no longer a threat, another virus will appear. It's the trend.

 

[Nathan Drake]

There will be a vaccine at some point of time, and when it's no longer a threat, another virus will appear. It's the trend.

It's not a virus, it's a bacteria. With bacteria, it is a matter of generally seeing if some form of penicillin can kill it. If not, they have to try to form a specialized antibiotic. Generally though, with E.Coli outbreaks, it is most important to find the source of contamination over trying to cure the problems it is creating. If the problem lies in a distributor that supplies only to Germany, it shouldn't be too terribly hard to figure it out.

Really, you just need to see where the last few places the person ate and what they ate before they became afflicted in order to really track down the problem area.

 

[SamAsh07]

There will be a vaccine at some point of time, and when it's no longer a threat, another virus will appear. It's the trend.

It's not a virus, it's a bacteria. With bacteria, it is a matter of generally seeing if some form of penicillin can kill it. If not, they have to try to form a specialized antibiotic. Generally though, with E.Coli outbreaks, it is most important to find the source of contamination over trying to cure the problems it is creating. If the problem lies in a distributor that supplies only to Germany, it shouldn't be too terribly hard to figure it out.

Really, you just need to see where the last few places the person ate and what they ate before they became afflicted in order to really track down the problem area.

Oh yes Bacteria...my previous post... gah, no wonder I gave up science after school.

 

[Theraima]

Here in Finland the media is freaking out at this. Also something that in Germany when the people got sick, they blamed Spain for bad cucumbers or something like that.

I'll start paying attention to this when/if it reaches here.

 

[Sausage Head]

this is like 2 weeks old.

the cause could have been that the apples from a dutch farmer operating in spain fell on the ground while delivering them to germany.
back then there were 2 people dead and 1 dude was infected in the netherlands

edit before posting:

The source of the infection, originally blamed on Spanish cucumbers, is unclear.

apparently it were cucumbers. whatever

 

[cosmiccow]

The most vegetables contaminated with the bacterium (mostly salad, cucumbers and tomatoes) are from northern germany.

They believe that somehow animals have gotten that bacterium. They're not getting sick of it, but their manure is infected with it - which is used to fertilize the fields and everything. If that sticks to vegetables and is not washed off properly, you can get sick of it.

That's the vague picture I have of it. A bit mysterious yet where exactly the bacterium comes from and what can be done against it.

 

[Acetic Orcein]

The most vegetables contaminated with the bacterium (mostly salad, cucumbers and tomatoes) are from northern germany.

They believe that somehow animals have gotten that bacterium. They're not getting sick of it, but their manure is infected with it - which is used to fertilize the fields and everything. If that sticks to vegetables and is not washed off properly, you can get sick of it.

That's the vague picture I have of it. A bit mysterious yet where exactly the bacterium comes from and what can be done against it.

Yes that's it

For the origin of the bacteria, I'm guessing some EHEC randomly mutated in the wild and somehow got ingested by the animals while they were grazing. Then it came out in their manure, fertilised, not washed off... etc. I can't see anything sinister behind the origin because it's so common for E. coli to mutate/obtain virulence genes anyway.

Yeah and as stated, finding the source of infection and stopping that spread is the most important thing. Normally it's difficult because there will be the latent period- time between consuming the contaminated food and the time for infection to actually occur. So it might be difficult for some people to remember where they ate!

 

[Deleted member 473940]

Signs that E. coli cases are stabilising, say doctors.
Slowing down aparently

! Thats good..

 

[cosmiccow]

They now found the source of E. coli/EHEC: Sprouts. Well, not really the source, but those are claimed to be infected and to spread it.

Cucumbers, tomatoes and salad are not evil anymore!

Happy veggy is happy now!

source: http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/eheckeime110.html