In re­cent world health news, the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) has been lead to warn Amer­i­cans, and all those im­port­ing Ro­maine let­tuce from the Unit­ed States (USA), to avoid con­sum­ing it due to con­cerns over a new E. coli out­break. Con­sumers are urged to throw away all ro­maine let­tuce, and re­tail­ers and restau­rants should not serve it. In a re­cent state­ment, "Con­sumers who have any type of ro­maine let­tuce in their home should not eat it and should throw it away, even if some of it was eat­en and no one has got­ten sick,” says the CDC. The source of the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion has yet to be de­tect­ed, but in­ves­ti­ga­tors are work­ing on find­ing the root of the prob­lem.

Oth­er­wise known as, “the crispy let­tuce,” to many Trinida­di­ans, coun­tries around the world are urged to take great cau­tion as new ev­i­dence has how that there may be a new strain of the E. coli virus be­ing car­ried through the ro­maine let­tuce be­ing im­port­ed from the US. If this type of let­tuce is a sta­ple in your house­hold, here are a few things you should look out for.

What is E. coli?

Es­cherichia coli (E. coli) is a bac­teri­um com­mon­ly found in the in­testines of peo­ple and an­i­mals. Most strains of these bac­te­ria are not harm­ful and ac­tu­al­ly con­tribute to keep­ing the gut healthy and op­er­at­ing, as it should. How­ev­er, E. coli al­so refers to wide range of bac­te­ria that can cause dis­eases such as di­ar­rhea, pneu­mo­nia and uri­nary tract in­fec­tions. In sus­cep­ti­ble in­di­vid­u­als, some strains of E. coli can al­so lead to kid­ney fail­ure.

What is caus­ing the in­fec­tion?

The strain caus­ing this par­tic­u­lar in­fec­tion is called the Shi­ga tox­in-pro­duc­ing E. coli (STEC) ac­cord­ing to the CDC. It’s one of the harm­ful types that can sick­en any in­di­vid­ual that con­sumes food har­bour­ing this bac­teri­um.

STEC can end up on your leafy greens through small, even in­vis­i­ble amounts of an­i­mal or hu­man fe­cal mat­ter. And when do dive in to your gourmet/healthy lunchtime sal­ad you may un­know­ing­ly be con­sum­ing fe­cal par­ti­cles. Yeah, that’s gross.

Symp­toms:

Ac­cord­ing to the CDC, " Symp­toms of Shi­ga tox­in-pro­duc­ing E. coli (STEC) in­fec­tion vary for each per­son, but of­ten in­clude se­vere stom­ach cramps, di­ar­rhea (of­ten bloody), and vom­it­ing. Some peo­ple may have a fever, which usu­al­ly is not very high (less than 101˚F/38.5˚C). Most peo­ple get bet­ter with­in 5 to 7 days."