More than 100 affected by British E.coli outbreak

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2005

LONDON (AFP) — More than 100 people have been affected by the dangerous E.coli food poisoning bug in Britain after an outbreak linked to suspect meat products.

Since the illness struck a school in south Wales a week ago, 115 cases have been confirmed as having caught the highly-contagious bug, including a four-year-old boy who was airlifted to hospital at the weekend after his condition deteriorated.

E.coli, particularly an increasingly common strain known as E.coli 157, causes severe vomiting and diarrhoea and can prove fatal, particularly for children or the elderly.

Although the cause of the Welsh outbreak has not been confirmed, public health officials have linked it to meat supplied by a family firm, Tudor and Sons, which supplies schools and shops...