Additional costs related to checks on vegetables coming from the European Union will lead to a rise in the price of vegetables and fruits. Ukraine will not resort to a complete ban on imports of vegetables from the European Union despite the fact that it's difficult to control the flows of imports of vegetables and pathogenic intestinal bacteria, Chairman of the State Veterinary and Phytosanitary Service of Ukraine Ivan Bisiuk has said.

He said that the European Commission's Directorate General for Health and Consumer Policy (DG SANCO) had officially informed Ukraine that the spread of intestinal infection was not linked to cucumbers, because the strain of E. coli on vegetables and the strain from which people die in Germany differ.

"We won't introduce a complete ban. Imagine that there are 20 types of vegetables, in particular, cucumbers, in a car... They all should be taken out and checked. It's difficult, but we asked for tighter controls over the import of vegetables," Bisiuk said.

He also noted that additional checks on intestinal infection on the border would be applied to all types of food products and manufactured goods. "We have enough inspectors. More products will pass through enhanced controls, especially from the areas where the cases of disease were recorded," he said.

Bisiuk said that there would be no lines on the border due to extra checks, because importers are allowed to move goods to their destinations, however, before this they are obliged in written form to dispose of the production the contamination of which could be detected by inspectors after studies in laboratories.

As reported, the World Health Organization said that an outbreak of intestinal disease in Europe had been caused by a previously unknown bacterium. The cases of food poisoning are still being recorded in Germany.

UKRINFORM