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Killer bacteria toll rises to 36

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The death toll from a killer bacteria  outbreak rose to 36 Monday as Germany said a warning to avoid eating  cucumbers, lettuce and tomatoes, initially suspected of carrying the bug, had  seen up to 10 percent of crops destroyed.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany’s national disease agency, said  3,228 people had fallen sick from the virulent EHEC (enterohaemorrhagic E.  coli) or the linked kidney ailment haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS).

All 36 deaths have occured in Germany except one patient who died in Sweden  but who had travelled to the country.

“For many days the number of new infections from EHEC or HUS communicated  to the RKI has declined in the country,” the agency said in a statement that  upped the previous number of fatal cases by one.

After several frantic weeks of searching, German authorities said on  Friday they had identified the contamination source as being vegetable sprouts  from an organic farm in Lower Saxony, northern Germany.

The farm cultivated sprouts from a variety of products including lettuce,  azuki beans, mung beans, fenugreek, alfalfa and lentils. It has been closed  and all its products recalled.

Authorities have said that the business in the northern village of  Bienenbuettel had done nothing wrong however.    With health officials only late last week dropping advice, particularly in  northern Germany, to avoid uncooked tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce, the scare  has cost European farmers hundreds of millions of euros (dollars).

German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner said that between five and ten  percent of the three salad vegetables’ crops had been destroyed in Germany.

“About 5,900 tonnes of cucumbers, 1,300 hectares of lettuce and 3,500  tonnes of tomatoes have had to be destroyed,” the minister told Tuesday’s Neue  Osnabrueker Zeitung newspaper.    Aigner defended health officials’ advice however. “Protecting consumers  from health risks will always take priority over economic interests, even if  that causes serious financial setbacks for some businesses,” she told the  paper.

The RKI still recommends not eating raw vegetable sprouts.    Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment said Sunday the outbreak is  the most serious of its kind recorded in the world to date.

Frankfurt, June 13, 2011 (AFP)

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