You may think you’re done hearing about E. coli in Europe, but E. coli isn’t done with you – or Europe, apparently. Today Dutch authorities were forced to recall red beet sprouts from three different countries after samples were found to be contaminated with E. coli bacteria. Does this mean the German E. coli outbreak mystery is solved? Unfortunately not – this is a totally different strain from the one currently wreaking havoc in Hamburg.
According to a report from the Huffington Post, the Dutch Food Safety Authority (DFSA) is still at work trying to identify which strain has afflicted the beet sprouts, but they do already know that the strain differs from the German strain and is much less dangerous.
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"It's not the same as in Germany,” DFSA spokeswoman Esther Filon told the Associated Press. “You can become ill, but as far as we know at this moment, it is not lethal.” Filon also assured that the DFSA is doing everything in their power to trace all shipments of the beets back to the growers.
So far only one grower was found to have shipped contaminated beets, a company called Hamu. With that said, tests on other produce from Hamu have come back free and clear of contamination. The contaminated beets from Hamu were exported to Germany and Belgium in addition to being distributed in the Netherlands. The beets have been recalled from all three markets.



