E-COLI strain. “Never seen before.”
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that the E-coli bacteria responsible for the deaths of 18 people across northern Europe is a strain “never seen before” in an outbreak.
Preliminary tests showed the bacteria is a mutant form of two different types of E-coli, that have aggressive genes possibly explaining why the outbreak has been so deadly.
“This is a unique strain that has never been isolated from patients before,” Hilde Kruse, a food safety expert at the WHO, told the AP news agency.
Kruse said the strain has “various characteristics that make it more virulent and toxin-producing” than the hundreds of E-coli strains that people naturally carry in their intestines”.
Chinese scientists at the Beijing Genomics Institute, who have been examining the bacteria, also said it carried genes that made it resistant to some classes of antibiotics.
“This E-coli is a new strain of bacteria that is highly infectious and toxic,” they said.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/06/201162103058997556.html
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