Thanks to a tweet from Maryn McKenna with a link to this Guardian report: Unpublicised E coli outbreak leaves 250 ill and one dead. Excerpt:
An eight-month E coli outbreak across the UK left 250 people ill and one dead but was not publicised at the time because its origins were unknown, health officials say.
After six months of investigations the infection was ultimately linked to people handling loose raw leeks and potatoes in their homes, said the Health Protection Agency (HPA), which has only now acknowledged the outbreak.
The cases began last December and continued until July. In total 250 victims – 100 of them under 16 – were left sick with vomiting and diarrhoea. Of those, 74 needed hospital treatment, including four who developed a rare digestive disorder which can lead to kidney failure in children. One unnamed patient, who the HPA said had underlying health problems, died.
The four were treated for haemolytic uraemic syndrome, a serious but rare complication of E coli infection, although most people recover from it.
The outbreak involved a rare strain of E coli 0157 called Phage Type 8 (PT8).
It affected 193 people in England, 44 in Scotland and 14 in Wales. While 40% of the 250 were under-16s, 69% were female.
In each of the past three years an average of 81 people across the UK have been infected with E coli 0157 PT8.
The HPA said it, Health Protection Scotland and Public Health Wales began becoming aware of increased numbers of E coli cases from December onwards.
An initial inquiry, which asked all those affected about their food intake and places they had visited, proved inconclusive. Unlike other E coli outbreaks it was not possible to identify one source for the outbreak, such as a commercial or children's farm, or food producer.
It was only after a second round of in-depth interviews with 30 sufferers that investigators realised that victims were 40 times more likely to have been in a home where people handled leeks sold loose and 12 times more likely to have been in a household where potatoes bought in or sold from sacks had been handled, compared with a control group of 62 unaffected people.
And not a single Spanish cucumber in sight.
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