Health watchdog defends decision to let E coli farm remain open

Published on Monday 14 September 2009 00:58

THE Health Protection Agency has defended its decision to allow a farm at the centre of an E coli outbreak to remain open despite children falling ill.

Three young children remain seriously ill in hospital after contracting the bug in what could be the largest ever outbreak spread by animals. Twelve children under the age of ten who visited Godstone Farm in Surrey have contracted the dangerous illness.

Godstone Farm, which allows children to pet and feed animals, was only closed yesterday because control measures brought in by the agency were thought to have worked.

Environmental health officers first inspected it on September 3 after cases of the dangerous O157 strain were reported.

Farm managers were told to stop visitors getting in contact with high-risk animals but were allowed to keep their gates open.

A HPA spokeswoman said: "This action has been taken in previous incidents, and is both a proportionate and effective response for the scale of incident at that stage."

It was only when a new case of the bug emerged late on Friday, of someone who had visited the farm before safety measures were introduced, that the farm was asked to close, which it did the following day. The spokeswoman said action was needed "to protect the public from further exposure to infection".

Neil Wilson, whose nephew Tommy is one of the sick children, said: "It's been a living hell. It seems quite surreal going in and seeing him and each day seeing him getting worse and worse, feeding tubes and blood going in. It's just awful, it's been an absolute nightmare."

Four of the youngsters were initially described as being seriously ill, but the Health Protection Agency (HPA) said last night that the condition of one had improved.

A spokeswoman said: "We have had no new cases reported today.

"Twelve children remain in hospital. Of those, three remain seriously ill."

The manager of Godstone Farm has defended the response to the crisis. Richard Oatway said today: "We feel we have done enough, until we know the cause of the problem, then we can go from there."