The German public health service has finally traced the e coli outbreak…to sprouts.
My question: how much of the bacteria is enough to make you sick?
The acid in the human stomach must destroy quite a bit of bacteria-how does e coli survive?
Plus: this starin is particlarly deadly-is it best from now on, to only eat peeled fruits, cooked vegetables, etc.?
Or is washing your vegetables able to reduce the danger enough?
This is the tiny number mentioned with the European breakout. A body can normally handle much more, but this strain is capable of taking over at that level.
Man those Germans are efficient.
The strain involved in that outbreak is an EHEC (enterohemorrhagic E. coli) also called STEC (Shiga toxin-producing E. coli) strain, serotype O104:H4 (different from the usual famous strain of EHEC you read about in textbooks, which is O157:H7). EHEC strains are distinct from other E. coli strains in that they express a Shiga-like toxin, called that due to its similarity to the toxin expressed by Shigella, another bacterium that can cause very severe invasive disease and dysentery. This strain has been noted to cause a hemolytic-uremic syndrome like O157:H7 does, which makes it even worse, since the body’s own immune response adds to the problem of dysentery. Both Shigella and O157:H7 are known to be highly virulent, with minimum infectious doses being potentially as low as 10 bacteria. If the German O104:H4 strain is similar, which it seems to be, it may have a similar minimum infectious dose.
It used to be that the limit of detection was 1 cell/25 g food. 4 oz. of food would -->4 cells, so the contamination was likely higher than what was detectable.
Should have been caught.
Also, some O157:H7 isolates are pretty acid tolerant. I’d never depend on my stomach acid to protect me.
Other posters have touched on it, but it’s important to understand that all E. coli strains are not the same. The strains that have caused these outbreaks are incredibly virulent and produce deadly toxins. But every human has garden-variety strains in their gut, which usually do not cause any harm. There are something like 10^14 bacteria in your gut right now, weighing a few kilograms, of which E. coli comprises a significant fraction. Those garden-variety strains can be opportunistic and cause infections if truly massive quantities enter the blood stream or anywhere besides your intestines. Normally though, your immune system has no trouble keeping ordinary E. coli under control.
Wasn’t that the point? That it had evolved outside the scope of normal tests for the other bacteria? Or am I thinking of something else?
The routine tests have to do with fermentation abilities of the O157:H7 bug. I don’t know it the DNA based tests have taken over in recent years, but I do remember many false positive results depending on the food product tested, and the other microflora.
Turns out that they’ve narrowed it down to organic sprouts, grown in Lower Saxony. Suddenly I am loaded with sympathy for Spanish cucumber growers, of whom I’ve never thought about before this incident.
ETA: There aren’t routine tests for this serotype, even though it has caused outbreaks in the past.