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Subscribe to RSSGermany's biggest outbreak of food poisoning, in which more than 11,000 schoolchildren have been laid low by diarrhea and vomiting, is "very likely" to have been caused by a batch of frozen strawberries, authorities said on Friday.
Children in almost 500 schools and daycare centres across eastern Germany that received food from a subcontractor of the catering firm Sodexo have been affected, and at least 32 have been treated in hospital.
The Robert Koch Institute, which advises the German Health Ministry on infectious diseases, said it had found a "strong and statistically significant link" between the outbreak and "consumption of products made from a batch of frozen strawberries".
Many of the patients were found to be infected with noroviruses, it said in a joint statement with a task force set up by the government and affected states.
Sodexo announced that it planned to compensate victims and said further details would be announced in the next few days.
In a statement, it apologised to the children and their families for "an extremely regrettable one-off incident" and said it would select its suppliers "even more rigorously" in future.
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
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Agreed, TK. I am an American with a few homes in Europe, including Germany. The ignorance and myopia of my fellow Americans is a source of my constant amusement. I got over embarrassment decades ago.
My husband, who is German and in Germany atm told me that the frozen strawberry's that Sodexo bought were from China.
This doesnt surprise me at all considering a month ago when I cooked some bagged spinach from the local grocery store, I bit on a piece of rock! When I exaimned the bag for details of where it came from, it was from China!
China it was.
Germany is such a clean country and they had their own strawberries growing everywhere. We used to pay a couple Euro to pick our own. I think it boils down to someone didn't wash their hands.
Being from Germany I read the German news almost ever day. The German news reports say that the strawberries came from China. It is strange that this fact was omitted in this article.
A 'vomit outbreak'? I didn't know that 'vomit' was a disease.
At my fraternity house back in the day we had vomit outbreaks all the time and you didn't hear us whining about it. A$$ in the tub is what makes people tough Germany.
a little to much beer lol, just kidding, but had to say it!