Three more cases of confirmed E. coli disease of romaine lettuce in Canada

Three other Canadian cases have been confirmed in the current E epidemic. Colis associated with romaine lettuce, announced Friday the Public Health Agency of Canada.

This brings to 22 the total number of people who became ill in Canada, including four in Ontario, 17 in Quebec and one in New Brunswick.

The agency said that there was no evidence that other parts of Canada had been affected.

The outbreak has also sickened more than 30 people in the United States.

Romaine lettuce contaminated with E. coli O157 was to come from California, the FDA told FDA on Friday.

This conclusion is "based on growth and harvest patterns," FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said on Twitter.

"The goal now is to remove from the market the product that is likely to be contaminated and then replenish the market," he said.

However, in a conference call with the media Friday, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said that even though it incorporated the FDA's information into its investigation, it could not yet confirm whether lettuce Roman making sick Canadians was grown in California.

Gottlieb said the FDA wanted to "help unaffected producers resume production," noting that Romaine lettuce would soon be harvested from other US growing regions, including Florida and the United States. ;Arizona.

The agency also wants to create more specific product labeling "the new standard" to help trace food back to the source, he said. The FDA "worked with producers and distributors to label products based on location, harvest date and possibly other means of informing consumers".

Labeling has proven to be a challenge in the food contamination survey, Matthew Wise, deputy head of the epidemic response division at State Control and Prevention Centers, told CBC on Friday. -United.

"One of the things we do not see somehow about packaging is growing a leafy green product," Wise said. "Often these bags are listed with … the location of the company's headquarters or something like that.

This makes it "almost impossible" for someone who looks at a lettuce bag to know if, for example, it has been grown in Arizona, California, Florida or Texas.