Russia stopped importing vegetables from Europe because of the "cucumber scandal"

Rospotrebnadzor introduced a temporary ban on the import of fresh vegetables from all European Union states into the country, the head of the department Gennady Onishchenko told RIA Novosti. The measure was introduced in connection with the emergence of dangerous intestinal infection in Europe, whose victims have already become 16 people. "We are banning the fact that the situation is not taken under control during the month. The sources of infection, transmission factors have not been established. The situation has sharply aggravated in recent days, so we are forced to go to these extremely unpopular measures," Onishchenko said.

1.4 thousand cases of the disease have already been recorded. The spread of infection in northern Germany led to the so -called "cucumber scandal" in Europe. The Federal Republic of Germany last week said that salad cucumbers from Spain were carriers of intestinal infection. After that, many European companies canceled or suspended previously concluded agreements on the supply of Spanish vegetables and fruits, and Rospotrebnadzor banned the import of raw vegetables produced in Germany and Spain into Russia.

However, on Tuesday, the Senator for Healthcare Hamburg Cornelius Prule-Shtorks, published laboratory research, indicating that, although infection bacteria did not correspond to the type of bacteria in the body of sick patients on the cucumbers from Spain, which means that the source of the infection has not yet been found.

According to Onishchenko, the ban will act until then, "until convincing data on what is happening and until the process of stopping the situation, its stabilization will begin."

Onishchenko noted that intestinal infection are recorded in nine EU countries. “Nine countries, more than 1,5 thousand sick, 16 dead - how many more lives of the European Union citizens are needed so that finally the national bodies of Europe are subject to this problem?”, The Russian sanitary doctor asks.

The infection is caused by the so -called Enterogemorragic bacterium Escherichia coli. According to the World Health Organization, the bacterium E. coli is often present in the intestines of people and warm -blooded animals. Most of her strains are harmless, but some strains, such as enterogemorrhagic intestinal stick, can cause severe diets of food origin.