The contamination of a Romanian cheese with Escherichia coli is an accident and we must trust the Romanian products, says Agriculture Minister Achim Irimescu, nevertheless admitting that he has no other information except media reports on a notification by Italian authorities on a sheep cheese made in Romania.
"I hope from all my heart that Europe understands that this was an accident. Its reality remains to be confirmed; we must see clearly what happened there, but the most important is to trust the Romanian products. We all know that we have products of an outstanding quality. There are situations when by not fully observing standards in certain areas, small accidents have occurred, but we hope it won't happen again, and the authorities make it to do their job; and I trust they'll do, so that certain situations will not occur anymore," Irimescu said Friday.
He warned that in cases of contamination all products must be returned to the factory and destroyed, to avoid public health issues. Irimescu reminded a case of a couple of years ago, when E. coli was found on fruit and vegetables, while Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos was a European commissioner for agriculture. According to Irimescu, the consumers have understood the situation back then, and sales declined only briefly.
Italian authorities have introduced a notification in the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) on 16 March, regarding the contamination of sheep cheese with Shiga toxin-producing E.coli. The contamination followed the hospitalisation of a 14-month toddler in Florence, on suspicions of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) possibly caused by cheese produced by the Lactate Bradet Company of Romania. The president of Romania's Sanitary, Veterinary and Food Safety Authority (ANSVSA) Andrei Butaru stated on Friday that the company had announced on March 5 the withdrawal of all its products manufactured in February, and the next day it handed the ANSVSA the distribution list. It included 20,364 kg of products marketed in Romania, all destroyed, and 10,385 kg in Spain, 1,410 kg in Germany, 1,108 kg in Belgium, and 6,517 kg in Italy.
Several children of Romania's Arges County - home of Lactate Bradet - were diagnosed with HUS in the past two months. Some of them were treated in the Marie Curie Hospital of Bucharest; three of them died.