E.coli: Germany admits that locally-grown bean sprouts are cause of outbreak
The head of Germany’s national disease control centre, Reinhard Burger, said that even though no tests of the sprouts from a farm in Lower Saxony had come back positive, the epidemiological investigation of the pattern of the outbreak had produced enough evidence to draw the conclusion.
“It is the sprouts,” Mr Burger said. He added that the institute is lifting its warning against eating cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce but keeping the warning in place for the sprouts.
The German authorities first blamed Spanish cucumbers before extending health warnings to all raw vegetables sparking a consumer panic across Europe that has devastated the agriculture industry.