E.coli home told to 'deep-clean' kitchens

The Nursing Home at the centre of the latest E. coli outbreak in Scotland, where one woman has died and seven others have fallen ill, has been ordered to "deep-clean" its kitchens as a "purely precautionary measure".

Three residents at the Cairnie Lodge Nursing Home, Arbroath, have been struck down with E. Coli, of whom one died and another is in a critical condition.

A committee of health experts has yet to pinpoint the source of the food poisoning.

However, environmental health officers have made a further inspection of Fleming's butcher shop, Arbroath, which supplied food to the home, and ordered that precautionary deep-cleaning be carried out there, too.

Meanwhile, early tests have shown that the cases in the recent Abroath outbreak may not have come from the same source.

There are three suspected cases in the outside community, and tests on one of these victims show his E.coli strain to be different from those in the home.

Those infected at the home are being kept in isolation.

Of the three people being treated in the infectious diseases unit at Dundee's King's Cross Hospital today, a man in his fifties, who was not a resident at the nursing home, appears to be recovering.

Tayside Health Board public health consultant Dr Mike Roworth said the infection might have been caused by improper cooking of an infected carcass.