Three prominent Irish retailers have removed Spanish cucumbers from their shelves following the outbreak of E.coli in Europe that has caused 16 deaths.
Dunnes Stores, Lidl and SuperValu said they removed the produce solely as a “precautionary step” and not because any contaminated vegetables were detected.
The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) said the decision to remove the produce remained a matter of individual store policy and was not based on any evidence of the bacterium in the Irish food supply.
A SuperValu spokesman said organic Spanish cucumbers were removed from shelves last Friday as a precaution, and that none of the product had been sold since.
Lidl also described the removal as a “precautionary step”, saying its produce is not affected by the outbreak.
Dunnes Stores has removed similar product from its shelves “for trade reasons”, according to the FSAI. Superquinn, Tesco and Aldi said they have not removed any products from their shelves as a result of the outbreak.
“We have no information from the European Commission to indicate that that any organic cucumbers from the implicated suppliers in Spain were distributed to Ireland,” said Prof Alan Reilly, chief executive of the authority. “Consumers do not need to be concerned,” he said.
Two new deaths linked to a bacterial outbreak in Europe blamed on tainted vegetables were reported today, including the first outside Germany, as the number of people falling ill continued to rise.
The deaths brought to 16 the total number of fatalities linked to the outbreak, with north-western Germany the hardest-hit region. It is widely suspected that the outbreak has been caused by contaminated Spanish cucumbers.
The FSAI said it was satisfied from contacts with suppliers that none of the suspect product is being sold in Ireland.
A spokesman said they were being updated several times a day by European agencies as attempts continue to identify the source of the contamination.
Earlier today, hospital officials in Boras, Sweden, announced the death of woman in her 50s who was admitted on Sunday after a trip to Germany.
In Paderborn, Germany, the local council said an 87-year-old woman who also suffered from other ailments had died.
In Germany, the national disease control centre said 373 people were sick with the most serious form of the outbreak — hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, a rare complication arising from an infection most commonly associated with E.coli. That figure was up from the 329 reported yesterday.
Susanne Glasmacher, a spokeswoman for the Robert Koch Institute, said another 796 people have been affected by the enterohaemorrhagic E.coli, also known as EHEC, bacteria - making a total of more than 1,150 people infected.
Hundreds of people also have been sickened in other European countries, but until today Germany had seen the only deaths.
Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment is still warning consumers to avoid all cucumbers, lettuces and raw tomatoes as the outbreak is investigated.
European Union officials have said that German authorities identified cucumbers from the Spanish regions of Almeria and Malaga as possible sources of contamination and that a third suspect batch, originating either in the Netherlands or in Denmark and traded in Germany, is also under investigation.
They have also noted, however, that the transport chain is long, and the cucumbers from Spain could have been contaminated at any point along the route.
The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration said today that no traces of EHEC bacteria were found in tests conducted over the weekend.
“There is therefore nothing that indicates that Danish cucumbers are the source of the serious E.coli outbreak that has infected several patients in Germany, Denmark and Sweden,” the agency said.
In the meantime, Russia’s chief sanitary agency yesterday banned the imports of cucumbers, tomatoes and fresh salad from Spain and Germany pending further notice.
It said in a statement that it may even ban the imports of fresh vegetables from all European Union member states due to the lack of information about the source of infection.
Additional reporting by AP