Beansprouts? EAggEC VTEC Europe

June 7, 2011
Germany's terrific scientists at the Robert Koch Institute appear hampered by a bureaucratic maze that does not exist in health care crisis management in the USA.
Der Spiegel Online states "The country (Germany), they say, is surprisingly ill-equipped to handle outbreaks on this scale because of its complex bureaucratic structures and regionally fragmented division of responsibilities. Experts say Germany's alert system is rudimentary compared to those in other developed nations."
http://www.rki.de/cln_144/nn_217400/EN/Home/EHEC__O104__H4,templateId=raw,property=publicationFile.pdf/EHEC_O104_H4.pdf


"While news of a potentially deadly outbreak can take up to two weeks to reach top German health authorities, other developed nations such as the United States and Japan, have instituted early warning mechanisms."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,766969,00.html
CDC updates statement:
http://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2011/ecoliO104/
and on June 5 WHO updated their outbreak statement: 
 "An increasing number of cases is laboratory confirmed as EHEC serotype O104:H4 or, more precisely, a strain of enteroaggregative verocytotoxin-producing E. coli (EAggEC VTEC) O104:H4."
http://www.euro.who.int/en/what-we-do/health-topics/emergencies/international-health-regulations/news/news/2011/06/ehec-outbreak-update-8
Characteristics of the bacteria:
http://www.rki.de/cln_144/nn_217400/EN/Home/EHEC__O104__H4,templateId=raw,property=publicationFile.pdf/EHEC_O104_H4.pdf


WHO FAQ on HUS and EHEC:


http://www.euro.who.int/en/where-we-work/member-states/germany/ehec-outbreak-in-germany/faq-background

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