Britons travelling to Germany should not eat tomatoes, cucumbers or raw salads, the head of the Health Protection Agency said on Sunday, as he admitted no one knew the exact source of the deadly E.coli outbreak spreading across Europe.
His advice came as the death toll from the E.coli outbreak reached 18, with fears that German hospitals were struggling to cope with many hundreds who have fallen seriously ill.
More than two million British people travel to Germany each year, according to the Office for National Statistics, making it the fifth most popular destination for Britons.
At least 1,700 people in Germany have been infected, including 520 suffering from a life-threatening complication that can cause kidney failure. Ten other European nations and the US have reported 90 other cases, all but two related to visits in northern Germany.
Justin McCracken, the chief executive of the HPA, said it was almost certain that the source of the outbreak was from northern Germany, not Spain, as was first believed. "As far as we can see at the moment the source of the infection is northern Germany. There is no source of infection anywhere else in the world. All the cases can be linked back to Germany."
He stressed that all those travelling to Germany should be extra careful about what they eat. "We are advising people who travel to Germany to avoid eating raw tomatoes, raw cucumbers and leafy salads, including lettuce," he said, speaking on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC One.
His advice came as the death toll from the E.coli outbreak reached 18, with fears that German hospitals were struggling to cope with many hundreds who have fallen seriously ill.
More than two million British people travel to Germany each year, according to the Office for National Statistics, making it the fifth most popular destination for Britons.
At least 1,700 people in Germany have been infected, including 520 suffering from a life-threatening complication that can cause kidney failure. Ten other European nations and the US have reported 90 other cases, all but two related to visits in northern Germany.
Justin McCracken, the chief executive of the HPA, said it was almost certain that the source of the outbreak was from northern Germany, not Spain, as was first believed. "As far as we can see at the moment the source of the infection is northern Germany. There is no source of infection anywhere else in the world. All the cases can be linked back to Germany."
He stressed that all those travelling to Germany should be extra careful about what they eat. "We are advising people who travel to Germany to avoid eating raw tomatoes, raw cucumbers and leafy salads, including lettuce," he said, speaking on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC One.
But he added that travellers should monitor carefully any change to the warnings issued by the German health authorities. "Because most outbreaks of E.coli in the past have been linked to meat and dairy products. And there is no certainty as to what the source of this outbreak is."
Only France, Spain, Ireland and America were popular destinations for British travellers in 2010, according to the ONS. In turn, Britain welcomes more travellers from Germany than any other country in the world, save France, with 2.99 million coming to the country last year.
In Britain, there have been 11 cases of E.coli, three of those with haemolytic uraemic syndrome, the potentially fatal kidney illness. All those affected have recently travelled to Germany. Mr McCracken said there was no evidence of person-to-person infection having occurred in this country.
In Germany, some patients have complained that the hospitals in Hamburg, the centre of the outbreak, are not coping. Daniel Bahr, the German health minister, said: "The situation in the hospitals is intense," adding that clinics outside of Hamburg should start taking in ill persons from the north.
One E. coli survivor, 41-year-old Nicoletta Pabst, told The Associated Press that sanitary conditions at the Hamburg-Eppendorf hospital were horrendous when she arrived with cramps and bloody diarrhoea. She said at least 20 others had a similar condition in the emergency room.
"All of us had diarrhoea and there was only one bathroom each for men and women — it was a complete mess," she said. "If I hadn't been sick with E. coli by then, I probably would have picked it up over there."
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