俄羅斯將對歐洲蔬菜解禁

Russia says it will lift its ban on European Union vegetables imposed in the wake of the deadly E. coli outbreak.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso made the joint announcement Friday following a two-day Russia-EU summit in the centrAl Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod.

The EU is to provide Moscow with documents certifying the vegetables' safety.

German public health officials say new data show that contaminated sprouts are the source of the outbreak, which has killed at least 30 people and sickened nearly 3,000 others. All but one of the deaths and the majority of those infected have been in Germany.

The head of Germany's national disease control center said Friday the pattern of the outbreak points to the sprouts as the source.

Health officials initially blamed the bacterial infection on Spanish cucumbers and other vegetables and then spread the blame to other European countries, costing EU farmers millions of dollars as produce was left to rot in fields and warehouses. Russia is one of the EU's largest markets for vegetables and other produce.

German authorities are now lifting the warning against eating cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce, but they say the crisis is not over and people should not eat bean sprouts.俄羅斯表示，將解除在致命的大腸桿菌流行爆發後對歐盟蔬菜實施的禁令。俄羅斯總統梅德韋傑夫和歐盟委員會主席巴羅佐在俄羅斯中部城市下諾夫哥羅德舉行兩天峯會後，於星期五發表了聯合公告。歐盟要向莫斯科提供證明蔬菜安全的文件。

德國公共健康官員說，新數據顯示，受污染的豆芽是這次疫情爆發的根源。這次疫症已造成至少30人死亡，近3000人染病。但除一人以外的所有死亡案例，以及大多數感染病例都發生在德國。

德國的國家疾病控制中心負責人星期五表示，疫情爆發的模式將病源指向豆芽。衛生官員最初責怪西班牙黃瓜和其他蔬菜的細菌感染，然後又將指責擴大到其他歐洲國家，致使農產品在田地和倉庫裏腐爛，歐盟農民蒙受了鉅額損失。

俄羅斯是歐盟最大的蔬菜和其他農產品市場之一。德國當局現在解除了對食用黃瓜、西紅柿和生菜的警告。不過他們說，危機並沒有結束，人們不應該吃豆芽。