Health minister: European specialists expected in Bucharest on Thursday to help in deadly HUS crisis

Specialists of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) will be in Romania on Thursday to help in multiple cases of children with hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), Health Minister Patriciu Achimas-Cadariu announced in a press conference on Wednesday 

"It is about the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, an absolutely standard mechanism which we called when we found ourselves in this absolutely specific and repeated situation. (...) It is not uncommon to appeal now to those specialists; we did it exactly when we had to. We haven't jump into the water too soon, we haven't postponed either. We did it exactly at the end of our investigation, when we've learned of this situation," the minister explained. 

He said that he keeps the Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos posted all the time with the situation of the babies with HUS. 

Three children died so far of hemolytic uremic syndrome in the Marie Curie Hospital of Bucharest; eight are still under treatment there, of which three in the intensive care ward. 

All cases come from Arges County, where 42 children are hospitalised for diarrhoeal diseases. The county sent two more infant patients to Bucharest on Wednesday. Epidemiological studies so far did not find a common cause. AGERPRES