Ireland is in the midst of one of its largest E. coli O157 outbreaks ever, with hundreds having been infected. Alan Reilly, former chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, told Food Safety News he wants to draw the attention of the public and government to the problem so something will be done about it.

“You have to ask why [the increase] is happening. The natural habitat for E. coli O157 is the gut of cattle and how is it getting from the gut of the cattle into humans? I don’t think you need to be a rocket scientist to come to a conclusion that somehow it is being recycled in the environment and is ending up in the human population.”

“In Ireland, traditionally most cases would be person-to-person contact in child care centres and kindergartens, essentially associated with hygiene. It would be down to environmental contamination, but this spike now in summer is something different.”

European stats

The latest figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) show 751 cases due to verotoxigenic E. coli (VTEC) since the start of 2018 until mid-August, an increase of 215 compared to the same period last year.

The EU report on trends and sources of food-borne outbreaks in 2016 by the European Food Safety Authority and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control says from 2012 through 2016, there were six countries that reported significantly increasing trends: Finland, France, Ireland, Malta, Romania and Spain. 

The highest country‐specific notification rate in 2016 was in Ireland at 15.6 cases per 100,000 population.“So you are looking at fresh produce playing more of a role in the larger outbreaks."

Reilly: “If you have it in something like lettuce, you are not going to cook the lettuce. Washing will remove surface contamination but there have been reports of E. coli entering the vascular system of leafy greens. Washing is not a 100 percent guarantee but you will probably remove about 90 percent of contamination.” 

“Europe is seeing larger outbreaks and it is associated with the environmental contamination. There was a big outbreak this year in the United States, associated with romaine lettuce from watering the lettuce with canal water that was contaminated. If you put all of that experience together you can say there is something serious happening here and we need to get on top of it."

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