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Six harvest workers have been infected with the lethal and highly infectious tularemia bacillus (Francisella tularensis) infected. The two women and four men suffered from severely swollen lymph nodes, high fever, chills and diarrhoea. Military experts regard the tularaemia pathogen as suitable for biological weapons.
The disease was triggered by an infected mouse in the vineyard, which got into the press during the harvest with the full harvest and thus contaminated the must. This was reported by the specialist magazine "The New England Journal of Medicine", which recently published the extensive analysis results. The state health office in Koblenz, several institutes in Rhineland-Palatinate, the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin and the university hospitals in Heidelberg were involved in the investigations.
Even with early treatment with antibiotics, five percent of the patients die; untreated, one in three infected people die. The vineyard helpers have survived the disease. Based on the DNA analysis of the identified pathogen, the experts were able to identify a mouse as the pathogen. The authors of the article warned that harvesting with the full harvesters was a potential source of infection for diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans. According to the Robert Koch Institute, about 20 to 30 cases of such an infection are reported in Germany every year. However, the number of unreported cases is presumably much higher.
The wine produced from the must by the winery was confiscated and destroyed.
(uka / Photo: German Wine Institute)