According to Finnish Food Safety Authority Evira, (click title to entry - thank you) there are no signs of an EHEC epidemic in Finland. No new infections have been found since Friday.
Tuula Honkanen-Buzalski, Director of the Research Department at Evira, says that there is now a cautious optimism in the air regarding the spread of the epidemic.
However, new cases may still emerge across the globe due to the publicity that the EHEC epidemic has got. Before hearing about the epidemic through the media, those fallen ill may not have realised that their symptoms were caused by EHEC bacteria.
The epidemic has caused the deaths of 19 people, while 1,700 have contracted the illness. On Friday, Finland’s National Institute for Health and Welfare THL reported a confirmed case of a patient, who was found to carry EHEC bacteria reminiscent of the fatal German strain.
The most common symptoms of an EHEC infection include bloody diarrhoea without a fever, and stomach cramps. The origin of EHEC infections remains unclear.
YLE
Isn't it believed to have been traced back to a seafood festival in Germany? Let me see if I can find the article.
Here it is.
Mystery deepens over E. coli poisoning (click here)
NewsCore
Isn't it believed to have been traced back to a seafood festival in Germany? Let me see if I can find the article.
Here it is.
Mystery deepens over E. coli poisoning (click here)
NewsCore
June 05, 2011
The weekly newspaper Focus said Saturday the festival drew 1.5 million visitors from Germany and abroad and noted that the first reported case of E. coli infection followed just a week later in the city's university hospital....
Sorry, a harbor festival. I remembered harbor as boats and fishing vessels. What is the chance this is some kind of toxic algae or something? Were there any recent algal blooms in the area?
There is a journal article about a Finnish toxic bloom back in the 1980s. It is a long shot, but, maybel The Finnish would have taken steps to rid their food supply or CONTACT with this algae.
Volume 190, Number 3, 267-275, DOI: 10.1007/BF00008195
Toxic cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) in Finnish fresh and coastal waters (click here)
A survey of the occurrence of toxic blooms of cyanobacteria in Finnish fresh and coastal waters was made during 1985 and 1986. Toxicity of the freeze-dried water bloom samples was tested by mouse-bioassay (i.p.). Forty-four per cent (83/188) of the bloom samples were found to be lethally toxic. Hepatotoxic blooms (54) were almost twice as common as neurotoxic ones (29). Anabaena was the most frequently found genus in toxic and non-toxic blooms and it was present in all neurotoxic samples. Statistical associations were found between hepatotoxicity and incidence of Microcystis aeruginosa, M. viridis, M. wesenbergii, Anabaena flos-aquae and Anabaena spiroides. Neurotoxicity was statistically associated with Anabaena lemmermannii, Anabaena flos-aquae and Gomphosphaeria naegeliana. Isolation of strains of cyanobacteria confirmed the occurrence of hepatotoxic and neurotoxic strains of Anabaena, as well as hepatotoxic strains of Microcystis and Oscillatoria species....
Blue-green algae can be fresh water streams and lakes as well. Algae causes all the symptoms noted with this bacteria. What if the bacteria mutated to a toxic food source?
Just a guess.
