DATE: Friday, August 15, 1997               TAG: 9708150668

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARIE JOYCE, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   55 lines

THE SOURCE OF THE SPROUTS: OFFICIALS ARE STILL HUNTING THE SEEDS LIKELY WERE EXPOSED TO MANURE, SAYS THE CDC, CAUSING AN E. COLI OUTBREAK.

Federal health officials said Thursday that they are still looking for the source of the alfalfa sprouts that sickened many Virginians with E. coli.

Dr. Roger Shapiro, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said investigators are tracking the farms that produced the seeds that grew into contaminated sprouts.

The investigation could take weeks or even months, said Shapiro, who spoke by phone from the CDC's Atlanta offices.

Meanwhile, the CDC advises people at high risk to avoid alfalfa sprouts. This includes infants, young children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems.

For others, rinsing sprouts may reduce the number of deadly bacteria if the sprouts are contaminated. But doctors don't know whether rinsing reduces the risk of infection. Sprouts typically are eaten raw.

None of the contaminated lot is still on the market, Shapiro said.

There is no reliable way to test alfalfa sprouts or seeds for E. coli O157:H7, the bad strain of the bacteria, say health officials.

E. coli O157:H7 is one strain of hundreds of the bacterium Escherichia. Most are harmless, but O157:H7 can cause bloody diarrhea, fever, severe cramps and nausea. It is particularly dangerous to the elderly and children under 5, although most victims recover without treatment.

State health officials pinpointed sprouts as the culprit by comparing the food eaten by a group of victims with the diets of a control group of people who did not get sick.

Thirteen of 19 victims said they had eaten sprouts within a week of getting sick, while only six of 45 people in the control group had done so, according to a report published Thursday by the CDC.

E. coli O157:H7 lives in cows, and Shapiro said the sprout seeds probably were exposed to cow manure in fertilizer.

While there are always sporadic cases of E. coli infection, Virginia had a statewide outbreak in June and July. Out of 48 E. coli O157:H7 cases reported during that time, at least 20 are likely related to contaminated sprouts.

Michigan reported a similar outbreak. A grower there received seeds from the same lot.

Sprouts undergo a long journey to the dinner table. From farmers, they go to seed suppliers, then to seed distributors, then to local growers, who send the sprouts to food distributors or to supermarkets.

The seeds that apparently caused the Virginia outbreak were sprouted by a Hampton Roads produce company, but health officials say the local company was not to blame. The company immediately pulled the bad lot from store shelves and replaced it with sprouts grown from seeds from another country.

Although many sprout seeds are imported, those in the contaminated lot apparently all came from U.S. farms, said Shapiro. He declined to identify the distributor that gave the seeds to the Hampton Roads company, saying the contamination apparently occurred before that.

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