Germany predicts ‘worst is over’ in E coli outbreak

GERMANY has expressed hope the “worst” of a killer bacteria outbreak is over as the European Union upped its aid offer to farmers hit by government warnings against eating raw vegetables.

The number of new infections from a highly virulent strain of E coli bacteria which has left at least 25 people dead and more than 2,600 ill was falling, German Health Minister Daniel Bahr said after crisis talks in Berlin.

And in Brussels, the European Commission hiked its offer of compensation to €210 million ($307m) for vegetable producers whose sales have collapsed in the wake of the scare.

The Berlin meeting was attended by Bahr, Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner, counterparts from Germany’s 16 states, public health institute officials and EU health commissioner John Dalli.

“We cannot give the all-clear but based on the evaluation of the data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI, the national health centre), there is reason for justified optimism that we have the worst behind us at the national level,” Bahr said. .

“For a few days, the number of new infections has continued to drop.”

He said Germany, which has seen all but one of the deaths, would maintain its warning against eating raw tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers and sprouts until it finds the origin of the contamination.

Confirmed infections in Germany stood at 2,648 on Tuesday in the latest count, with 75% of cases in the north of the country. In addition to the 25 deaths in Germany, one woman who had just returned from Germany died in Sweden. But infections have been reported in more than a dozen countries, with symptoms ranging from bloody diarrhoea to, in full-blown cases, kidney failure.

In light of the scare, the European Commission had asked EU states on Tuesday to earmark €150m in aid for ailing farms but drew immediate criticism that the amount was insufficient.

Belgian Agriculture Minister Sabine Laruelle estimated producer losses to be “in the hundreds of millions of euro” after countries such as Russia outlawed vegetable imports.

The Russian ban was expected to figure prominently at a summit meeting Thursday where EU leaders were to renew calls for an immediate about-face.

Spanish farmers, angry at their failure to sell their produce, gave away 40 tonnes of fruit and vegetables in protest in Madrid.

And the German association of fruit and vegetable growers urged authorities to refine their blanket warning against raw vegetables.

After European partners slammed Germany’s public health warnings — including a false alarm over Spanish imported cucumbers — Dalli defended the country’s management of the outbreak. But he said that as long as people were still dying, German authorities and their European partners had to zero in on its cause.