“No worrying development has been noticed in the Kingdom. The poisonous bacteria spreads from contaminated vegetables and salad to human beings, and I recommend people better keep away from the vegetables that cause the disease until the picture becomes clear and all the aspects of the topic studied,” Undersecretary for Preventive Medicine Dr. Ziyad Maymish told Arab News on Friday.
Customs clearance agents in Jeddah have not received any government circular regarding the vegetable and fruits imported from Europe and so the shipments are being treated as normal, Chairman of the Committee for Customs Clearance at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry said.
“The vegetable and fruits imported from Europe are either frozen or fresh. The safety of frozen items comes under the jurisdiction of the Saudi Food and Drug Authority, while fresh vegetables and fruits are the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture,” he said.
However, he said he did not know the precise quantity of vegetables imported from Europe but added that the shipments came almost daily which were cleared instantly and that most of them came from the King Abdulaziz International Airport.
Meanwhile, Germany set up a national task force on Friday to hunt down the source of the E. coli strain that killed 17 people and sounded alarms around the world. Russia on Thursday extended a ban on vegetables from Spain and Germany to the entire European Union in order to stop the outbreak spreading east, a move the EU quickly called disproportionate.
The UAE issued a temporary ban on cucumbers from Spain, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. The UAE’s Minister of Environment and Water said the order was based on information from international food safety agencies and news reports.
The World Health Organization said 86 percent of those affected by the current outbreak were adults, and two-thirds were women. It said it was unusual that children weren't affected much.
A quarter of the new cases involved the hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious complication resulting from E. coli infection that affects the blood and kidneys, Germany’s Robert Koch Institute said. The HUS outbreak, one of the largest of its kind, has been the main contributor to the deaths in north Europe, all of whom had traveled in northern Germany.
More than 1,500 cases of E. coli/HUS have been reported in Germany alone and authorities have been unable to identify the source of the strain. Germany’s Consumer Protection and Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner deflected criticism on Wednesday that the government had falsely blamed Spanish cucumbers as the source of the outbreak after some tested positive for the bacteria.
