A 21-year-old woman from Padiham is being treated in the intensive care unit of Burnley General Hospital for suspected E.coli poisoning.

Environmental health officers have launched an investigation and spoken to the woman to try and find out how she became ill.

Samples have also been set for laboratory tests in a bid to confirm that she is suffering from the infection but it is believed that the woman could have contracted the infection after eating hummus, an hors d'oeurve made from ground chick peas and sesame seeds. She was a "stable" condition in hospital today.

Burnley Council senior environmental health officer Andrea Lensky said: "We were informed on Friday afternoon and as soon as we were notified we sent officers up to speak to her to try to identify how she might have contracted the infection.

"Our investigations are progressing but we are unaware of any other cases in the Burnley area. We are also liaising with the East Lancashire Health Authority. It could have been contracted from a number of sources and our investigations began as soon as we were notified that there was a possibility of it being E.coli O157."

A spokeswoman for East Lancashire Health Authority confirmed they were aware of the case but were waiting for confirmation.

She said: "E.coli is an organism caused by bacteria found in the colon and can cause renal problems."

The worst case of E.coli O157 was in Lanarkshire, Scotland, in the latter months of 1996 and it claimed more than 20 lives. It was linked to a butcher's shop. In December 1996, six children and three adults, mostly from the Barnoldswick area contracted E.coli O157.

An inquiry found the most likely source to be from a Gisburn dairy farm and called for a ban on green-top unpasteurised milk.

In September 1997 six people from Blackburn, two from Hyndburn and one from Burnley were confirmed as suffering from E.coli, but the cases were not linked and a number of different types of E.coli O157 were responsible.

And in May this year milk production at a Ribble Valley dairy farm was halted pending the investigation of an E.coli outbreak which affected eight children.

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