A daycare center in Toulouse, France, had to carry out a deep cleaning of its facility after several children staying there became seriously ill with E. coli bacteria.
On Friday November 10, several of the 54 children who attended the Minimes crèche required urgent hospitalization after developing symptoms of E. coli bacteria, France 3 Occitanie reported on Tuesday.
Some of them even had to be taken to the intensive care unit of the Purpan hospital, French media reported, although without receiving data on the extent of the outbreak.
“We have set up an on-call system from the weekend to inform families and crèche staff in real time,” explained Laurence Katzenmayer, assistant for early childhood and crèches at Toulouse town hall.
She made it clear that the daycare center regularly meets with neighboring residents of the residential facility for elderly people in need of care as part of a cross-generational project.
Fortunately, the young people infected by the bacteria had all recovered after their hospital stay and were now out of danger.
According to reports, an investigation is currently underway to find out the origin of the non-food bacteria, since the infected children would not have consumed the same foods and the analyzes of the latter would not have shown any signs of the presence of bacteria. Coli, according to initial information.
Samples were taken throughout the daycare center to locate the source before a “thorough and rigorous cleaning” was carried out, Laurence Katzenmayer continued, according to France 3 Occitanie.
The daycare is set to reopen its doors on Wednesday, while all children, their families and staff have tested negative for the bacteria.