The devastating effects on an E.coli infection
Posted Oct 6, 2012 7:52 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A food safety and microbiology professor at the University of Manitoba says even the smallest amount of E.coli bacteria can leave a child crippled for life.
Rick Holley says as few as 10 cells can cause stomach cramps, vomiting, bloody diarrhea, kidney failure and even death.
He tells the Calgary Herald: “It is especially awful in kids. it destroys their kidneys and some never get over it.”
Alluding to the situation at the shuttered XL Food plant in Brooks, the source of meat recall affecting another 90 products, Holley says that once the bacteria gets in a plant the facility can have “a hell of a time getting rid of it.”
Officials with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency believe it’s possible that one cow — called a super shredder — may have been the source of the outbreak in Brooks.
A single cow can infect all of the other cows in a pen.
So far there have been five confirmed cases of E.coli sickness, all of them in Alberta, that have been linked to the XL plant in Brooks.
