31 Dead From E. Coli Outbreak, Source Of Outbreak Confirmed

An E. Coli outbreak in Europe has officially claimed the lives of 31 people and left 2,988 people sick. Originally the E. Coli was suspected to have been from cucumbers, but now the source of the outbreak has been confirmed. European countries still have to use caution when eating the vegetable because officials have yet to track down where the veggies came from. Read more info and find out what vegetable caused the outbreak after the jump.

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our more deaths have been confirmed by German health officials Friday bringing the total number of European deaths from an E. coli outbreak to 31. All but one were in Germany.

The number of people infected with E. coli now stands at 2,988, of whom 759 have the severe form of the intestinal illness. Though the rate of infection is slowing down, officials at the Robert Koch Institut said the number of infections will continue to rise.

But even as investigators identified the source of an E. coli outbreak, officials warned the threat was not over because authorities cannot definitively say how or where the sprouts that were identified as the source were infected.

Investigators determined bean sprouts were the cause of the outbreak after 17 people became ill after eating at the same restaurant, Reinhard Burger, president of the Robert Koch Institute, told reporters.

Authorities questioned people about what they ate and asked the cooks where the ingredients came from, Burger said.

The common denominator, he said, was only those who ate food containing the sprouts became ill.

Officials believe the outbreak originated at a bean sprout farm in northern Germany but have not found direct evidence.

There was no trace of E. coli in a pack of bean sprouts in a household in Hamburg, where a man had become infected. The sprouts came from the farm that officials believe could be the source of the outbreak.

But initial tests showed no sign of E. coli there, agriculture officials in the German state of Lower Saxony said this week.

Authorities said that does not mean their suspicions were wrong; they would not expect to find evidence of E. coli if the tainted sprouts were no longer in the supply chain.

Farmers in Spain, France, Holland and Belgium have been seeking compensation for their losses. The European Commission has proposed that the European Union pay about $300 million, but Spain alone claims about $600 million in losses.

In Spain, the fresh produce exporter Frunet filed what is believed to be the first lawsuit by a Spanish company against the Hamburg state government over its earlier allegations that Spanish products were to blame for the E.coli outbreak.

The complaint, filed Thursday in Hamburg, demands the immediate release of all laboratory tests and other documentation that Hamburg officials used when they blamed — wrongly it turns out — Frunet’s organic cucumbers as a source of the outbreak, Frunet’s owner, Antonio Lavao, told CNN by phone on Friday.

Frunet, based in Spain’s southern Malaga province, expects to file another lawsuit against the Hamburg state government seeking 1 million euros ($144 million) in losses from fresh produce it had to destroy, Lavao said.

“My company was named specifically” by German authorities, Lavao said.

His exports remain blocked because even as German and European Commission officials have cleared Spanish cucumbers generally of any link to the outbreak, there remains suspicion among his clients since his firm was identified, wrongly, as a source of the bacteria, he said.

“We don’t want to be collateral damage. We want a specific rectification,” Lavao said.

The lawsuit is the first of its kind by a Spanish company against German authorities, said Jose Maria Pozancos, managing director of Spain’s fresh produce export federation Fepex.

Frunet grows relatively few cucumbers; its speciality is premium tomatoes for export.

Lavao said he was not confident that his firm would receive any public compensation, which is why it filed the lawsuit against German authorities.
 

CNN