Children hit by farm E coli outbreak rises to 14

Published on Wednesday 16 September 2009 22:02

FOURTEEN children are now being treated in hospital after an E coli outbreak at a petting farm, it has been revealed.

The total number of cases linked to the outbreak has risen from 37 to 40, said the Health Protection Agency. Four children are seriously ill, seven are stable and three are improving.

The figure comes after the head of the HPA personally apologised to the parents of children left seriously ill by the outbreak at Godstone Farm in Surrey.

Justin McCracken apologised for delays after it emerged the agency received reports about the outbreak earlier than was claimed. He has commissioned an independent investigation.

Initially, the HPA said the first E coli case came to light on August 27 but a subsequent inquiry has discovered two cases were reported in the previous week.

Mr McCracken said: "If this information had been taken into account on 27 August, the advice given and the steps taken on 3 September would have been introduced earlier and the farm might have been closed earlier."

Tracy Mock, 38, from Paddock Wood, Kent, mother of two-year-old twins Aaron and Todd Furnell, who are ill in St Thomas's Hospital in London, said:

"It is good the HPA have had the guts to launch this independent external investigation . But the fact remains that the farm should not have been open when my guys went there after there had been earlier reports of people being ill with E coli."

Meanwhile, another toddler, Alfie Weaver, is being monitored by doctors at East Surrey Hospital in Redhill, where he has also undergone blood transfusions.

The little boy was left screaming in agony when his kidneys shut down following the outbreak. He was cared for in an isolation ward but is now understood to have begun talking.