E. coli food born outbreak in Norway at 2006

Abstract

In January-February 2006 Norway had its first, serious, national outbreak of food born disease caused by an unusually aggressive form of Verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli (E.coli) O103:H25. A total of 18 people, including 16 children became ill after eating infected food. 10 children developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). One of the children died. The handling of the outbreak by the Authorities and industry has been the subject of much debated and public criticism. Due to this the Authorities made an internal routine investigation of their handling of the infection outbreak. This case was so special that they choose to hire the consulting firm, Det Norske Veritas, to take the assessment. The main goal was that the Authorities should learn from the mistakes and improve how to handle similar crises in the future. Not long after, the Government decided to appoint a committee comprising experts from several countries to evaluate the crisis management from several sides. Det Norske Veritas believes that the E. coli case in itself represents a significant learning opportunity for all the actors who were affected by the crisis. The Authorities as agency has shown great willingness to reflect and learn from the E. coli case. After the E. coli crisis Norway experienced several outbreaks of Salmonella and the internal assessments of Salmonella case showed that the Authorities had improved their handlings at the points seen as weaknesses, reported in the E. coli case.