A rare European E. coli bacteria could cause chaos

Fresh food products may be contaminated with a rare and deadly strain of E. coli bacteria.

A rare strain of E. coli bacteria has been the cause of worry for global health officials. The European E. coli has been linked to a well known strain of bacteria called O157:H7. It is been linked with most serious outbreaks of food-borne E. coli.

Processed beef, bagged salad greens, walnuts, sprouts and water can be contaminated with it, which, if ingested can be life threatening because it produces harmful shiga toxins – antibiotic resistant bacteria that can cause diarrhea and organ failure.

On the other hand, U.S. fresh produce business representative have down played the concerns of the occurrence of similar problem here. United Fresh Produce Association President, Tom Stenzel, says that he has no news that the food grown here in U.S. or imported is contaminated with the rare strain.

“We’re in as good a shape as we can be as an industry,” stenzel said on June 2.

As per media reports, more then 1500 people have been found sick and around 17 have died through June 2 since the outbreak was last reported.

Up till now it has not been found about the source of the infection, but some say it’s from cucumbers from Spain. A German agency, the Federal Institute of Risk Assessment, found no O104 E. coli in four Spanish cucumber samples.

After the outbreak from contaminated lettuce and spinach in recent years, E. coli has become a big concern for the U.S. produce industry. In U.S., outbreaks were mostly linked with ground beef tainted with more commonly found strain O157:H7. E. coli is found in the intestines of cattle.

Fresh produce growers and shippers loose business when certain items are wrongly blamed for sickening people. In 2008 people were asked not to eat tomatoes as an E. coli outbreak was linked with it, but later on it was found that illness was caused due to a pepper from Mexico.