The European Commission has issued an alert over possible Escherichia coli bacteria (E.Coli) in sheep milk cheese made in Romania.

According to the alert issued in the RASFF – the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed, the cheese comes from Romania and has been mainly distributed in Italy, France, and Germany.

The Commission decided to issue such an alert after a notification from Italy. The Italian authorities confirmed on Thursday that cheese infected with the E.Coli bacteria caused intestinal infection in a 14-month old Romanian baby admitted to a hospital in Florence, reports local Mediafax. The cheese is believed to have come from Romanian dairy producer Lactate Bradet SRL, headquartered in Arges county.

Referring to this incident, Romanian Agriculture Minister Achim Irimescu said that the contamination of Romanian cheese with E.Coli is an accident, and people should still have confidence in Romanian products, local Agerpres reports.

Lactate Bradet has recently been at the core of a media scandal after Romanian authorities said its dairy products caused the E.coli infection that resulted in the illness and even death of several children from Arges county. However, the Cantacuzino research institute in Bucharest later showed that the Bradet cheese was not the source of infection.

Later on, new info emerged, as local media reported that several of the Bradet factory’s employees tested positive for E.Coli. But soon after, the dairy maker's owner Marius Badea said that none of the company’s employees was sick “by Romanian law”. According to him, the employees who tested positive for E.Coli were not working directly with cheese, so they had no direct contact with this product.

The situation escalated on Friday, March 18, when the management of the Sanitary-Veterinary and Food Safety Authority (ANSVSA) announced that over 20 tons of Bradet dairy products have been withdrawn from the Romanian market. A similar decision was also taken in Spain (over 1 ton) and Italy (546 kg), reports local Mediafax.

Authorities have withdrawn from the market all the products Bradet made in February, according to the food safety authority, which also recommended people not to consume these products.

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Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com