USA TodayThe E. coli bacteria responsible for a deadly outbreak that has left 18 dead and sickened hundreds in Europe is a new strain that has never been seen before, the World Health Organization said Thursday.
Preliminary genetic sequencing suggests the strain is a mutant form of two different E. coli bacteria, with aggressive genes that could explain why the Europe-wide outbreak appears to be so massive and dangerous, the agency said. Hilde Kruse, a food safety expert at the WHO, told the Associated Press that “this is a unique strain that has never been isolated from patients before.”European health officials tracking the outbreak, one of the worst on record, might never know where it came from. It’s a sad fact of life in food poisoning cases: There often is no smoking gun. The germ has sickened more than 1,500 people, mostly in Germany.
Preliminary genetic sequencing suggests the strain is a mutant form of two different E. coli bacteria, with aggressive genes that could explain why the Europe-wide outbreak appears to be so massive and dangerous, the agency said. Hilde Kruse, a food safety expert at the WHO, told the Associated Press that “this is a unique strain that has never been isolated from patients before.”European health officials tracking the outbreak, one of the worst on record, might never know where it came from. It’s a sad fact of life in food poisoning cases: There often is no smoking gun. The germ has sickened more than 1,500 people, mostly in Germany.