The strain of Escherichia coli that has caused lethal food poisoning in northern Germany was almost certainly carried by bean sprouts. The bacteria have not been found in food, but epidemiological investigation of what victims ate point towards one German sprout farm.
Meanwhile, mounting evidence suggests the bacterial strain responsible for the outbreak has been circulating in Germany for the past decade – and in people, not cattle as initially supposed.
It is likely to have got into food via human faeces, says Lothar Beutin, head of the national E. coli lab at the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment in Berlin.
