Brussels, 09/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 5 October, German authorities briefed all EU member states on the health problems alleged to have been caused by frozen strawberries imported from China but, as things stand, the gastro-enteritis epidemic amongst school children that have eaten the food is, as the European Commission pointed out on 8 October, confined to Germany.
Frédéric Vincent, who is spokesman for John Dalli, EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, told the press that the Commission was informed on Friday evening of these suspicions and a memo for information has been sent to the other EU member states, but that, at this stage, no other state seems concerned.
In total, the epidemic has hit 11,200 people in Berlin and in three regions of eastern Germany. The incriminated strawberries had been carried to Hamburg (44 tonnes in total) and delivered by the German subsidiary of the French catering company, Sodexo, for consumption in school canteens. Sodexo has since apologised to the victims, to whom it will be granting compensation.
The German authorities have recalled all suspect strawberries and are continuing their investigation to establish with certainly, and with scientific evidence in hand, what the origin of the epidemic is. However, it is already possible to ascertain that this is nowhere near a European food crisis and nothing like the 2011 communication glitch when Germany had mistakenly cast suspicion on Spanish cucumbers of being at the origin of food chain contamination by the fatal bacteria ECEH (strain O104), when the source of the problem was in fact traced by to germinated seeds imported from Egypt. (AN/transl.jl)