Hmm ... "Hamburg Is The Epicenter of the Deadliest E. Coli Outbreak in Modern History"

“It’s quite possible that there’s a crazy person out there who thinks 'I’ll kill a few people or give 10,000 people diarrhoea’. It’s a negligent mistake not to investigate in that direction.” 

For anyone who does not remember, Hamburg is the city of Mohammed Atta. And, after 9/11, it was reported that Hamburg was a home to over 1,000 "Islamic Radicals".

That's part of the story I had not picked up on before.


You say "Hamburg" and couple it with mass deaths, and my ears perk up.

From AP:

German hospitals overwhelmed with E.coli outbreak 

BERLIN (AP) -- Hospitals in northern Germany are being overwhelmed as they struggle to provide enough beds and medical care for patients stricken by an outbreak of E. coli, the German health minister admitted Sunday.

"The situation in the hospitals is intense," minister Daniel Bahr told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, adding that clinics outside of Hamburg and northern Germany - the epicenter of the E.coli outbreak - should start taking in ill persons from the north.

Bahr announced he would visit the University Medical Center in Hamburg-Eppendorf later Sunday to see the situation firsthand and talk to physicians and nurses who have been working overtime and double-shifts for weeks in a row.

Hamburg is the epicenter of the deadliest E. coli outbreak in modern history, which has killed at least 18 people since May 2. More than 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 U.S. have reported 90 other cases, all but two related to visits in northern Germany.

While suspicion has fallen on raw tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce as the source of the bacterial outbreak, researchers have been unable to pinpoint exactly where or what food was responsible.

Researchers from Germany's national disease control center have inspected a restaurant in the northern city of Luebeck where 17 people were reported to have fallen ill with E. coli last month. Health experts were also investigating whether the disease spread at a festival in Hamburg that was visited by 1.5 million people.

German authorities are investigating ‘a possible deliberate act’ as search for source of E. coli outbreak continues

An outbreak of killer E. coli that has spread to 12 countries and killed 19 people may be linked to a Hamburg festival in May and could have claimed a 20th victim, reports said on Saturday.

German weekly newspaper Focus said authorities were looking closely at a harbour festival that took place in Hamburg on May 6-8 and that drew 1.5 million visitors from Germany and abroad.

The newspaper noted that the first reported case of E. coli infection followed just a week later in the city’s university hospital.

Germany’s national disease institute The Robert-Koch Institute, however, said there did not appear to be a connection. “Press information regarding a link between the E. coli infections and large gatherings does not correspond with the institute’s knowledge,” German news agency DPA quoted it as saying.

Local media also said Saturday a man in his 50s who died in Brandenberg may be the 20th victim in Europe but the cause of death was uncertain because he had several other infections as well as E. coli.

The latest confirmed death was of an 80-year-old woman in the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Friday.

The European Commission on Saturday said it was preparing to send a team of experts to Germany to help speed up efforts to locate the source of the outbreak, a statement said.

So far, scientific tests have failed to support a link to the epidemic, the European Union’s Reference Laboratory for E. coli in Rome has said.

Faced with the mystery, German reports said police were investigating a possible deliberate act and were also checking two restaurants in the northern town of Lubeck, one in which 17 diners fell ill and another in which eight women were affected, one of whom died.

MORE FROM WILL AT THE OTHER NEWS, VIA THE TELEGRAPH:

The warning from the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure [CPNI], which operates as part of the Security Service, comes as experts warned the deadly E.coli outbreak in Germany has highlighted the vulnerability of the food chain and how quickly bacteria can spread.

The highly virulent strain has claimed 18 lives and left more than 1,800 seriously ill, with the true number of cases expected to be far higher.

A senior German doctor last night called for an investigation into the possibility that the bacteria had been spread deliberately.

Klaus-Dieter Zastrow, chief doctor for hygiene at Berlin’s Vivantes hospital, said:

“It’s quite possible that there’s a crazy person out there who thinks 'I’ll kill a few people or give 10,000 people diarrhoea’. It’s a negligent mistake not to investigate in that direction.”