E Coli Outbreak in Germany

[The Specialist]

IMO, it can be foreseen. It depends on your Food Safety program. Your GMP and HACCP programs must be robust especially microbiological sampling, traceability procedure, corrective action etc. You have to take planned steps which correct the product under question and also rectify the operation so that you get safe food then on-wards. Corrective Action in the context of ISO 9001 is different from Corrective Action in the context of ISO 22000.

All the controls in the world can be negated by human error.

If anything can be 'foreseen'; it is that something can and will go wrong, eventually.

This whole saga could have been started by someone simply not washing their hands properly and handling the product somewhere throughout the process chain.
I can't see how such a thing could be foreseen. I am sure that all the necessary 'controls' were in place to prevent this from happening, however, there is the human factor.

 

[selena15]

hi

even with late

no body has suggested the persticidals as possible root cause, i do not have for sure knowledge about what is used in farms in germany but finally , who know which vegetalbe are the responsbile, et from where it comes and what was the process of it is production. long time ago, i saw one debate relating to this pesticidal used in SPain for exemple, or course as said here too , it can be a complex mutation of one germ, a possible contamination of the transportation, or boxes which was used for this need...it can be anything

is there any preventive medecine to take in case of travelling to or from the risky area??


sel

 

[Barbara B]

hi

even with late

no body has suggested the persticidals as possible root cause, i do not have for sure knowledge about what is used in farms in germany but finally , who know which vegetalbe are the responsbile, et from where it comes and what was the process of it is production. long time ago, i saw one debate relating to this pesticidal used in SPain for exemple, or course as said here too , it can be a complex mutation of one germ, a possible contamination of the transportation, or boxes which was used for this need...it can be anything

The company near Uelzen is an eco-farming company, so pesticidals are not allowed to use there.

is there any preventive medecine to take in case of travelling to or from the risky area??

AFAIK no preventive medicine exists, but you can minimize your own risk by washing your hands regularly with soap for 20-30 sec, avoid public toilets, be careful with door handles and avoid contact with potentially infected persons. If all the food you eat is cooked previously for at least 10 min, E. coli are killed (the current RKI recommendation is to astain from sprouts only).

Since the number of newly infected people decreases, there is a high probability that the source is now inactive, but you can't be sure to 100% (like in every other thing regarding life on this planet ).

Regards,

Barbara

 

[AnaMariaVR2]

Eculizumab experimentation during the German outbreak

There is no effective treatment for E. coli patients who are currently suffering from epileptic seizures, kidney failure or strokes.
...so Doctors are using untested medication for deadly E. Coli

 

[AnaMariaVR2]

O104:H4 DNA sequence profiling

I'm not sure why profiling O104:H4's nucleic acid sequence would take 1 whole week specially at the advanced & prestigious Robert Koch Institute (RKI).

Traditional bacterial growth & DNA profiling steps:

• [Day 0] Inoculate bacterial strains into culture growth flasks the night before.
• Grow culture 12-18 hrs or 24-30hrs (depending) on a shaking orbital incubator overnight.
• [Day 1-next day] After overnight culture, harvest bacterial culture by spinning culture in centrifuge, removing supernate (growth media & waste) & keeping pellet (where bacteria is) to be use for any scientific analysis. [30 minutes]
• Immediately proceed to lyse bacteria & do a bacterial nucleic acid preparation which can be done the old fashion way from scratch or by using commercial rapid prep kit from QIAGEN, for example. [±3 hrs].
• At that point now that a bacterial DNA prep has been obtained, regular PCR or better, RT-PCR can be done in order to map the profile of this E.coli strain. [±4 hrs]

Unless I'm missing something, I just don't understand why it take RKI 1 week to PCR or RT-PCR this bacteria.
For real?...a whole week? are we back in the 1960's?
Even a poor lab without the staff & resources of RKI can get this done in 48 hrs with diligence.

Maybe something else is going on.

I'm sure that at RKI they have the personnel & resources to speed even this timeline.

 

[Barbara B]

Re: Eculizumab experimentation during the German outbreak

There is no effective treatment for E. coli patients who are currently suffering from epileptic seizures, kidney failure or strokes.
...so Doctors are using untested medication for deadly E. Coli

There were several therapeutic approaches established in the last few days which filter toxines out of the blood and/or minimize the risk of neuropathological syndroms. Anemia is treated with concentrated erythrocytes. A plasmapheresis could be made to wash toxines out of the blood. For severe cases, children and pregnant women a hemofiltration is an option. Some antibiotics are another approach as the bacterium is a hybrid of an Enteroaggregative E. coli which can be killed with specific antibiotics.

For some rare cases Eculizumab as mentioned in the article can help to protect erythrocytes from getting killed by O104:H4, but this is in fact an untested approach and therefore only an option for really severe cases which do not respond to any therapy mentioned above.

Regards,

Barbara

 

[Barbara B]

Re: O104:H4 DNA sequence profiling

I'm not sure why profiling O104:H4's nucleic acid sequence would take 1 whole week specially at the advanced & prestigious Robert Koch Institute (RKI).

Traditional bacterial growth & DNA profiling steps:

• [Day 0] Inoculate bacterial strains into culture growth flasks the night before.
• Grow culture 12-18 hrs or 24-30hrs (depending) on a shaking orbital incubator overnight.
• [Day 1-next day] After overnight culture, harvest bacterial culture by spinning culture in centrifuge, removing supernate (growth media & waste) & keeping pellet (where bacteria is) to be use for any scientific analysis. [30 minutes]
• Immediately proceed to lyse bacteria & do a bacterial nucleic acid preparation which can be done the old fashion way from scratch or by using commercial rapid prep kit from QIAGEN, for example. [±3 hrs].
• At that point now that a bacterial DNA prep has been obtained, regular PCR or better, RT-PCR can be done in order to map the profile of this E.coli strain. [±4 hrs]

Unless I'm missing something, I just don't understand why it take RKI 1 week to PCR or RT-PCR this bacteria.
For real?...a whole week? are we back in the 1960's?
Even a poor lab without the staff & resources of RKI can get this done in 48 hrs with diligence.

Maybe something else is going on.

I'm sure that at RKI they have the personnel & resources to speed even this timeline.

If there was only 1 PCR to make you're timeline would be correct (and of course the RKI and other institutes in Germany do have good equipment and qualified personnel). But they made 10.000 tests and therefore it lasts a little bit longer to get the results.

Regards,

Barbara

 

[AnaMariaVR2]

Re: O104:H4 DNA sequence profiling

Thanks Barbara...why 10,000 tests?
Are we talking about 10,000 permutations of the sequence?

tschüss,
Ana

 

[Barbara B]

Re: O104:H4 DNA sequence profiling

Thanks Barbara...why 10,000 tests?
Are we talking about 10,000 permutations of the sequence?

tschüss,
Ana

There were 10.000 single tests made. Before the sprouts-lead was confirmed, they took samples from everyone and everything (e.g. patients, vegetables from the fridge of infected people, family members of infected peoples, samples from waste containers,...) to find the root causes.

Currently beside the sprout another root cause was detected: An employee of a caterer infected 20 people. She carried O104:H4, but hasn't had any symptoms when the meals and drinks were preparated (and yes, this could have been prevented with appropriate personal hygiene procedures as O104:H4 as well as every other EHEC infection could be passed by smear infection).

After the party the employee became sick and then the connection between her infection and the infection of the 20 people could be proved. To establish this connection not only the 21 patients (1 employee + 20 guests) were tested but also catering equipment, other employees of the caterer, family members of the party guests, and so on.

Regards,

Barbara

 

[AnaMariaVR2]

Re: O104:H4 DNA sequence profiling

Thanks Barbara for your thorough reply. I hope they get to the bottom of this problem soon.

Regards,
Ana