German beansprouts likely cause of deadly E. coli outbreak; toll at 22 dead, ove

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German beansprouts likely cause of deadly E. coli outbreak; toll at 22 dead,

over 2,200 sick

By Kirsten Grieshaber An Tomislav Skaro, The Associated Press | The Canadian

Press – 9 minutes ago

HAMBURG - German agricultural authorities on Sunday identified locally grown

beansprouts as the likely cause of an E. coli outbreak that has killed 22 people

and sickened over 2,200 others in Europe.

The Lower Saxony agriculture ministry was sending an alert Sunday warning people

to stop eating the sprouts, which are often used in mixed salads, ministry

spokesman Gert Hahne told The Associated Press.

" Bean sprouts have been identified as the product that likely caused the

outbreak, " Hahne said. " Many restaurants that suffered from an E. coli outbreak

had those sprouts delivered. "

Hahne said the sprouts were grown on a farm in Lower Saxony in northern Germany.

He did not elaborate but planned a news conference later Sunday.

Hahne said while official test results have not yet conclusively shown that the

Lower Saxony-grown sprouts were to blame, " all indications speak to them being "

the cause.

He also said authorities would still keep their warning against eating tomatoes,

cucumbers or lettuce in place for now.

The crisis is the deadliest E. coli outbreak in modern history.

The head of Germany's national disease control centre raised the death toll to

22 Sunday — 21 people in Germany and one in Sweden — and said another 2,153

people in Germany have been sickened. That figure includes 627 people who have

developed a rare, serious complication that can cause kidney failure.

The World Health Organization said 10 other European nations and the U.S. have

reported a total of 90 other victims.

Earlier in the day, Germany's health minister fiercely defended his country's

handling of a deadly E. coli outbreak as he toured a hospital in Hamburg, the

epicenter of the crisis.

The comments by Health Minister Bahr seemed to reflect a sharp U-turn in

his public response to the crisis and came after Associated Press journalists

reported on the chaos and unsanitary conditions in the emergency room of the

same hospital, the University Medical Center in Hamburg-Eppendorf.

Prior to his visit, Bahr admitted that hospitals in northern Germany were

overwhelmed and struggling to provide enough beds and medical care for patients

stricken by the bacterial outbreak, and suggested that other regions start

taking in sick patients from the north.

But after one E. coli survivor told the AP that sanitary conditions at the

Hamburg hospital were horrendous when she arrived with cramps and bloody

diarrhea, Bahr announced his visit and changed his tune.

Bahr told reporters that, despite capacity problems at some hospitals, German

medical workers and northern state governments were doing " everything necessary "

to help E. coli victims.

" I witnessed how the employees in the institutions have been working intensively

and informing patients early and transparently " about their conditions, Bahr

said.

Bahr said he wanted to see the situation firsthand and talk to physicians and

nurses who have been working overtime and double-shifts for weeks since the

crisis began May 2.

tta Pabst, 41, told the AP that sanitary conditions at the

Hamburg-Eppendorf hospital were shocking and its emergency room was overflowing

with ailing people when she arrived.

" All of us had diarrhea and there was only one bathroom each for men and women —

it was a complete mess, " she said Saturday. " If I hadn't been sick with E. coli

by then, I probably would have picked it up over there. "

After waiting three hours to be seen, Pabst was told to go home because her

blood levels did not indicate that she had kidney failure. When her symptoms

deteriorated sharply, she had to return by ambulance the next morning and was

treated for a week at a different hospital. Her children were blocked from going

to school.

Jan Kielstein, a nephrologist at a hospital in Hannover, told the Tagblatt

newspaper that staffers there were working day and night to treat E.coli

patients.

" Some employees even cancelled their vacations and they are highly motivated to

help in this serious situation, " he said.

Oliver Grieve, spokesman for the Schleswig-Holstein University Hospital in the

northern city of Kiel, told Spiegel Online that " our personnel is working round

the clock ... they voluntarily come in on weekends and even sleep here. " He said

additional ER nurses had come up from southern Germany to help and even the

hospital's cleaners were working overtime.

Critics had earlier questioned the slow pace of Germany's investigation, with

the medical director of Berlin's Charite Hospitals, Ulrich Frei, saying that

health experts should not have waited a month before interviewing patients.

Fear of the aggressive E.coli outbreak also spread to countries outside Europe.

The Gulf nation of Qatar on Sunday temporarily banned imports of fresh

cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce from Spain and Germany and insisted all other

fresh fruit and vegetables from Europe carry a health certificate declaring they

were free of E. coli.

Lebanon banned all vegetables from the 27-nation European Union while the United

Arab Emirates banned cucumber imports from Spain, Germany, Denmark and the

Netherlands.

Russia on Thursday also banned vegetables from the entire EU to keep the

outbreak from spreading east, a move the EU called disproportionate and Italian

farmers denounced as " absurd. " No E. coli infections have been reported in

Russia.

___

Grieshaber contributed from Berlin, Adam Schreck reported from Dubai.