Careful with the Pepinos!!

[El Cid]

It now seems that the cucumbers may have been infected in Hamburg when a pallet load tipped over and was repacked.

Sid

Hmm. That is what the spanish co-operative say..they would wouldn't they! .

How would they know that? That suggestion apparently came from the German importer.

Also, latest news suggests that the E-Coli strain reported is very rare in Spain.

Interesting! It's a bit like Silent Witness!

Sid

[julian]

"Surprising where different foods are exported. In Waitrose, Cucumbers were from Essex "

whilst the pound is worth so little against the euro waitrose and other uk stores have to avoid buying from euro countries as much as they can....buying in euros and selling in pounds means essex products come first.
knowing the germans there is a good reason why they buy cucumbers from spain and not from essex.

"So all these cucumbers fell on the floor and were instantly contaminated..."
if food can´t get instantly contamnated why are we told to wash our hands before touching food and eating it?
would you not wash fruit and veg that had been handled by others before you eat it?

[julian]

"Also, latest news suggests that the E-Coli strain reported is very rare in Spain"

E-coli is commonly known as "hamburger" disease,and as the cucumbers were from the the Hamburg central market the name alone proves where the contamination took place !!!

[katy]

So the floor of this German market is soo dirty that a pallet of cucumbers fell on it and made over 300 people ill....yeah right. I would refer to the link provided by Frank.

Sure they will get a clean bill of health from the spanish authorities

[Devils Advocate]

When our local ruffian of a Spanish bloke up the track picks fruit or digs up a cabbage for us he says something like "neccassario Olympia".......he then plunges the freshly picked produce into a big rusty bucket of stagnant water that his horse,donkey,6 dogs and geese drink out of, he then dries the said offering on the gusset of his blue but very stained work trousers...................and I've come to no harm .

[julian]

and I would refer to the words of the european commission

"la Comisión Europea ha reconocido que la contaminación de los pepinos españoles pudo producirse fuera del país de origen y hacerlo "en el transporte o en la distribución a tiendas en la propia Alemania"

(not a spanish commison, a european commission)
but you seem to have more knowledge of this case than them.

[Campo Steve]

..........I think the reason that the younger generation are so unhealthy is because they eat too much processed food that is full of E numbers and additives.My father used to grow marrows and tomatoes sown directly into horse manure,they tasted great not.

Not all E numbers are bad. Many are natural products. Most people living in the campo have E410 growing on their land i.e. algarroba (carob trees).

[julian]

"El brote continúa. De ayer a hoy hemos contabilizado 60 nuevos casos de SUH (síndrome urémico hemolítico), es decir, de desarrollos graves de esta infección", ha declarado el director del Instituto, Reinhard Burger, a la televisión pública ARD"

so sevaral cases of a disease commonly known as "hamburger disease" has been found in Hamburg and the expert is called R.Burger...........

[swerve]

Latest news



It's business as usual for a street vendor in Berlin despite an official warning for Germans to stop eating fresh cucumber, tomato and lettuce. Picture: AP. AP


German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner, right, addresses the press yesterday in front of Germany's central federal institution responsible for disease control and prevention, the Robert Koch-Institute in Berlin. Picture: AFP. AFP

GERMANY is holding crisis talks over warnings that an outbreak of E. coli bacteria poisoning, which is believed to have already left 12 dead, is still spreading.

Some two weeks after the outbreak was first reported in the north of the country, the number of people contaminated or suspected of having been poisoned by the potentially deadly enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) has reached 1200, according to media reports.

There was no immediate official confirmation of the figure but the Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has described the outbreak as ''one of the largest worldwide and the largest ever reported in Germany''.

EHEC can result in full-blown haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), a disease that causes bloody stools and serious liver damage and which can result in death.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany's national disease institute, reported 329 HUS cases nationwide and three confirmed deaths.


Related Coverage
12 dead in Germany from killer cucumbers
Herald Sun, 20 minutes ago
Germany's deadly E.coli source unclear
Herald Sun, 1 day ago
Lethal 'cucumber bug' grips Europe
Herald Sun, 1 day ago
Killer cucumbers kill 3 more
Herald Sun, 1 day ago
Two more die in cucumber outbreak
Herald Sun, 2 days ago


Consumer Affairs Minister Ilse Aigner was to hold an emergency meeting overnight with Health Minister Daniel Bahr and regional state representatives to discuss the outbreak, her ministry announced.

The outbreak has also affected several other European countries, including Britain, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands, though most cases appeared to involve people who had travelled from Germany, the Stockholm centre said.

RKI president Reinhard Burger said the source of the contamination had not yet been clearly identified, but he called on people, especially in northern Germany, to avoid eating raw cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce.

Authorities had earlier said they had traced some bacteria on organic cucumbers imported from Spain, a measure which led many supermarkets and shops to remove all Spanish-grown vegetables from their shelves.

''At the moment, we can't reliably say what the actual source of contamination is,'' Burger said.

Jan Galle, director of the Luedenscheid clinic in western Germany, warned that the disease could also be transmitted from person to person.

''We know the EHEC can also be propagated by contact between people,'' he told ZDF public television.

''Normally we see about 1000 cases per year, but we've now had some 1200 cases in just 10 days. And we know that this time the EHEC strain is especially virulent and resistant, and has led to a very high number of HUS'' cases, he added.

''We are still going to be losing people,'' Joerg Debatin, the head of the Eppendorf University Clinic in Hamburg which has seen 76 HUS cases, told Spiegel magazine.

Meanwhile, Belgium has moved to block cucumber imports from Spain.

Sabine Laruelle, Belgium's agriculture minister said: ''The federal agency for food chain security has banned imports from two distributors''.

She said verifications already showed that ''no Spanish cucumbers had been imported since winter''.

[wendyakemp]

I think its the way the cucumbers were stored.
They have already admitted that they have not imported any Spanish cucumbers since the winter, so where and how were these stored, yuk???
The reason that peppers were wrongly accused, a yahoo translator mistook pepinos for peppers!!!
They changed their headlines within a couple of hours but the tabloids had already copied it.

[El Cid]

The exporter in Algarrobo is claiming that the cucumbers arrived in Germany after the first reported case of the E-Coli infection.

It looks to me like everyone is trying to blame the Spanish exporter with absolutely no evidence that they were infected when they left Spain.

Sid

[katy]

Austria has now cleared shelves of spanish veg, Russia has a ban and France has also banned spanish peaches. Spain says no-one there has the e-coli but that doesn't prove anything as those two companies supplied solely to other countries. Der Spiegel claims there is a direct link to the málaga company, confirmed by EU. Whatever the outcome it will have caused financial damage to a lot of spanish companies who are blameless.

I just don't think it is credibile that all those cucumbers happened to get infected after leaving the depot. The infection will have grown inside not on the skin.

[julian]

amazing the in depth knowledge here about the tecnicalities of bacteria in vegetables..I bet the experts will want to fly some of the a.com members over to give them a hand !

[frank]

It looks to me like everyone is trying to blame the Spanish exporter with absolutely no evidence that they were infected when they left Spain.
Sid

It may, or may not turn out to be the case that it isn't the Spanish pepinos, but there would seem to be a common denominator there, and whilst people are dying, it seems eminently sensible to me to ban the imports, whatever they are and from wherever they come. Better safe than sorry, but already too late for some.

[katy]

logically the Germans are going to want to identify the source ASAP., people are dying. There must be some evidence to link to pepinos, they won't just be trying to pin it on another country. Of course there wouldn't be evidence they were contaminated when they left Spain...how could there be The spanish authorities did not enter the Fruton premises for tests until Friday, whilst the owners knew about the accusation 3 days before! Not going to be a chance of finding anything there is they

[El Cid]

Of course they should ban the imports until it is clearly established where the infection started.

What I don't like is the way the press immediately blame the producer. It causes lasting damage to the reputation of Spanish exports even if they are subsequently to be found not responsible.

Sid

[julian]

"Not going to be a chance of finding anything there is there "

hidden all the kms and kms of fuit and veg in the wardrobe and mopped up with a bucket of bleach to hide any trace of the bacteria maybe?

[gus-lopez]

I read last night that they have traced it to a refrigerated trailer that had been used previously to carry fresh meat & had not been washed out.

[julian]

I don´t think they have a definite result from all the tests yet to know exactly where, how or why it ocurred, all speculation till they get all the results.

the following law suit will be interesting with the cucumbers and peppers as key witnesses !!

[Jool]

The spanish Agricultural minister was shown on TV today eating cucumbers raw.....E-coli is most often transmitted via beef not vegetables and thus an unwashed lorry with meat residue could easily be responsible