News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Two Eurosurveillance reports yesterday shed new light on secondary infections in Europe's Escherichia coli O104:H4 outbreak, suggesting that the pathogen isn't more transmissible than other similar strains and that it can lose its extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) resistance.

– German researchers who were the first to release the initial genome sequence of the Escherichia coli O104:H4 outbreak strain published their in-depth findings yesterday, which found that it differed from a 2001 strain found in Germany, but that both could have evolved from a common progenitor.