Ireland’s record on combating deadly bacteria is scandalous

WHILE the whole world focuses on the horrific outbreak of a particularly virulent strain of E coli in Germany that has so far claimed 22 victims, there has been very little talk about Ireland’s scandalous history of this bacteria.

In 2009, the latest year for which figures are available, twice as many Irish people got ill from the bug as have been affected in Germany by the latest outbreak. The bacteria common in Ireland, VTEC/STEC O157, is essentially the same type of bug in the German outbreak but a different strain.

For three of the past four years up to 2009 Ireland had the highest incidence of E coli poisoning in the EU — up to seven times more than the EU average.