Ireland warned on dangers of E coli outbreak

It may be simply a matter of luck that Ireland has not had outbreaks of potentially fatal E coli 0157 food poisoning, a food safety conference heard yesterday. The food-borne bug has caused close to 30 deaths in Britain in the past year.

Ireland had a lot in common with Scotland, which has the highest global incidence of E coli 0157, and cannot say it will not follow suit, according to an expert on the bug, Prof Hugh Pennington of Aberdeen Royal Hospital. His report on an outbreak that claimed 21 lives in central Scotland this time last year led to radical changes in food safety in Britain.

It was not possible to say why Scotland had such a high incidence and Ireland was almost an E coli-free zone. "All we can point to is that Scotland was in the position you are now. At the end of the day, you may join us. England is joining us."

Just as knowledge of the bug's behaviour (it was first identified in 1982) was sketchy, the reasons for differences between countries was unclear. It may be due to eating habits, a lot of people on "a cattle diet" and a large agricultural sector. "Scotland has had bad luck. Ireland has had good luck. Watch this space," he warned.

The Scottish Office had seen the E coli problem coming before major outbreaks and had set up a microbiological reference laboratory which proved vital in identifying bug strains and their source.

Prof Pennington told the international conference in Dublin, hosted by the farm research body Teagasc, that he had been taken to task for questioning the level of vigilance in Ireland but was assured that E coli testing was going on. "You still need to have a sophisticated level of surveillance similar to that introduced in Scotland in 1992."

E coli, which is prevalent in farm animals, is an infrequent source of human infection, but could have catastrophic effects in humans because of ease of transmittability when it takes hold. It was one of the nastiest bugs because its toxins often led to kidney failure, especially in children and old people.

The doubling of E coli cases in Scotland over the past year was contributed to by "human error, stupidity, not learning from the past and bad management practices" despite how easy it was to "cook it out of food".

Its prevalence was in meat, particularly burgers, but global cases were increasingly associated with milk, cheese, water, fruit juice, yoghurt, mayonnaise and vegetables washed with manure-contaminated water. Dirty animals brought to slaughter were a particularly bad source.

The Lanarkshire outbreak, which affected 501 people, and other Scottish cases were linked to poor practices in butcher shops. A lot of cases could be blamed on cooked meats and convenience foods. Shortcomings included poor temperature controls and inadequate separation of cooked and raw meats.