Government is urging people to throw out spinach because of the deadly E.coli threat which has already killed one person in the States and put eight in jeopardy.

The recall here comes after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an alert to consumers about an outbreak of E.coli.

The FDA warned people not to eat bagged spinach and said washing it wouldn?t solve the problem because the bacteria are too tightly attached.

?If you wash it, it is not going to get rid of it,? said Robert Brackett, director of the FDA?s Center for Food Safety and Nutrition.

The original outbreak was reported Thursday. Yesterday, Ohio and Kentucky brought the tally to ten states affecting 58 people, as additional reports trickled in to state and federal health officials.

Bermuda?s Chief Environmental Health Officer Estyln Harvey said evidence suggests bagged fresh spinach may be a possible cause of this outbreak.

As a precautionary measure the FDA has expanded the recall to include all spinach products.

Ecoli has been attributed to other food poisoning outbreaks, one of which was fresh-cut lettuce that affected 409 persons with two deaths.

Health experts said although fresh fruits and vegetables are good for people because they are not cooked, anything that comes into contact with fresh fruits and vegetables is a possible source of contamination.

It can come via water used for irrigation or rinsing or from unhygienic people on the production line.

Symptoms occur six and a half hours after consumption ? diarrhoea, vomiting, stomach cramps, fever, chills ? persons experiencing these symptoms should see their physician.

Most healthy adults can recover completely within a week, although some people ? including the very young and old ? can develop a form of kidney failure that often leads to death.

Officials believes the affected spinach may have been grown in California and federal and state health officials there were trying to pinpoint the source of the contamination.

E. coli lives in the intestines of cattle and other animals and typically is linked to contamination by fecal material. It?s commonly present in animal manure.

Mr. Brackett said the use of manure as a fertiliser for produce typically consumed raw, such as spinach, is not in keeping with good agricultural practices.

The death occurred in Wisconsin, where 20 people were reported ill, 11 of them in Milwaukee. The outbreak has sickened others ? ten of them seriously ? in Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon and Utah. In California and Washington, health officials were investigating a single case in each of the two states.

The outbreak has affected a mix of ages, but most of the cases have involved women. Preliminary analysis suggested the same strain is responsible for the outbreak in all ten states. Not all strains of the bacteria cause illness.

Health officials did not know of a link to a specific growing region, grower, brand or supplier although most of the spinach crop at this time of the year comes from California.

Anyone who has gotten sick after eating raw packaged spinach should contact a doctor, officials said.

All spinach items intended for sale or recently purchased should be removed from backroom stock and menus, salad bars and homes.

This includes:

All bagged spinach

All fresh bunched spinach

All salads containing spinach

Heath officials here have no idea when the spinach scare might end.