E. coli mystery deepens

with French disclosure

Experts, once confident they knew the source of a lethal strain of E. coli in Europe, are again mystified after French scientists revealed that another dangerous E. coli outbreak near Bordeaux weeks ago appears to match the same rare strain that struck northern Germany.

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/fs/food-disease/news/jun3011coli.html

Experts are scrambling to piece together the source of the pathogenic strain, O104:H4, after scientists disclosed that O104:H4 was the strain that gravely sickened 10 or more people near Bordeaux June 8 and appeared to match the genetic profile of the German strain.

Authorities said the infective bacteria in Bordeaux were unlikely to have originated on a German organic farm that has been identified as the source for the fatal German outbreak. In both outbreaks, consumption of raw bean spouts was a common factor and yet no E. coli have been found on or in suspect sprouts.

The separate outbreaks are puzzling because O104:H4 has never been identified in livestock or other animals, but only in human intestines. In the past decade, the rare bacteria strain has acquired immunity to a number of antibiotics commonly used to treat human patients, leading one expert to assert that the strain originated in one or more hospitals, as hospitals are notorious breeding grounds for resistant forms of bacteria.

And yet, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control on June 29 issued a risk assessment implicating fenugreek seeds imported from Egypt in 2009 and 2010, from which sprouts were grown, as a common source of both outbreaks, but cautioned that "there is still much uncertainty about whether this is truly the common cause of the infections," as tests on the seeds had not yet found any E. coli bacteria of the O104:H4 strain.

http://www.fsai.ie/news_centre/press_releases/raw_bean_sprouts250611.html

The inability to find a plausible link raises the possibility that the bacteria were deliberately deposited on foods at the fair and on shipments of bean sprouts from the farm to German restaurants. In that case, the O104:H4 strain might have either been cultivated in a laboratory to gain antibiotic resistance or been a virulent hospital strain isolated by a researcher. However, this resistant strain seems to have never been reported as a hospital problem.

The suggestion that the E. coli might have resided on or in sprout seeds in a dormant state has not been verified.

The mainstream media have reported no indications of a terrorist act, with security authorities generally silent on the possibility.

Professor Joe Cummins of  the Institute for Science In Society wrote that the E. coli strain was resistant to antibiotics "predominantly available in medical applications."

He observed,  "The convergence of  multiple antibiotic resistance genes and novel toxins suggest that the lethal bacteria originated in a hospital or hospitals."

Cummins noted: "E. coli O104:H4 also contains an array of antibiotic resistance genes conferring resistance to ampicillin, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, piperacillin/sulbactam, apiperacillin/tazobactam, cefuroxim, cefuroxim-zxetil, cefoxitin, cefotaxim, cetfazidim, streptomycin, nalidixinsäure, tetracyclin, trimethoprim and sulfamethoxazol, exceeding the numerous resistance genes found in previous lethal outbreaks."

http://www.amberwaves.org/articlePages/cummins.html

In France, according to Le Monde, 10 persons had been hospitalized with bloody diarrhea and severe renal impairment (hemolytic uremic syndrome). They had mostly eaten sprouts at a fair organized on June 8.

The North Germany outbreak began in May, killing about 40 and sickening about 3,000. Bordeaux is about 1,200 kilometers from Marburg, Germany, where diners at a restaurant took ill at the start of the outbreak.

Reuters reported that French authorities say six of the people hospitalized in Bordeaux ate sprouted salad vegetables grown from seeds by parents for the fair at a leisure center in the Bordeaux suburb of Begles.

The suburb's mayor, Noel Mamere, told Reuters the seeds had been bought from a local shop, whose entire stock had since been seized. The French commerce ministry said the seeds at the shop were supplied by Thompson & Morgan, a British firm which argued that it had sold many seeds, with no reports of illness.

While awaiting the results of analyses, the government had instructed the consumer authority "to ask sellers of fenugreek, mustard and rocket seeds coming from supplier Thompson & Morgan to suspend the sale of these products."

Le Monde reported that for microbiologists, it can hardly be a routine coincidence that this very rare strain was found on the same type of sprout in places so widely separated and a few weeks apart.

Its natural reservoir is perhaps in a country of Asia or Africa where the tests are rare, Le Monde said, which does not simplify the task of epidemiologists.