HEALTH officials admitted yesterday that more people may become infected with the deadly E coli bacteria because of the delay in identifying suspect outlets.
The acknowledgment came as the Scottish Secretary, Mr Michael Forsyth, announced that a team of experts is to investigate the outbreak of food poisoning which has so far killed five elderly men and women and may have infected a further 132.
The inquiry will be led by Prof Hugh Pennington of Aberdeen University who has already indicated that the death toll is in line with statistical expectations. His appointment followed fierce Labour criticism of the handling of the health emergency which by last night had put 49 people, including three children, in hospital.
Eleven patients in hospital in Airdrie are giving cause for concern, while a woman in Glasgow Royal Infirmary is on the critical list.
Labour complaints centred on the delay in naming the ever increasing number of central Scotland businesses which received cold meat or pies from John Barr and Son, the upmarket Wishaw butchers presumed to have been the source of the infection.
Yesterday North Lanarkshire Council confirmed that the particularly virulent E coli 0157 bacterium had been detected in gravy supplied by the shop to the lunch club where the outbreak started.
The council also added a further 11 addresses to the list of 56 shops it finally released late on Wednesday night. The reluctance to advertise possible sources of contamination has led to charges that officials had put commercial interests before their duty to the public.
Mr Graham Bryceland, head of protection services for North Lanarkshire Council, agreed it was "possible" that the secrecy could result in further victims. Barr's products are unlabelled, and a customer of one of the 67 implicated businesses may have bought and stored a contaminated item before they were cleared from the shelves.
Officials attributed the delay to, variously, government guidelines, the slow release of information from Mr Barr, and a reluctance to blame the current Scottish Butcher of the Year without firm evidence. Although the lunch club and 10 of the initial suspected victims had patronised his double fronted Wishaw shop, it serves up to 80 per cent of the town. Officials claim they wanted to make sure they were not pursuing a coincidence.
"The most important thing was for our officers to get to these premises and to get meat from the premises," Mr Bryceland said. He was supported by Dr Sayed Ahmed, a public health consultant with Lanarkshire Health Board who said Mr Barr had been contacted within three hours of the outbreak being reported last Friday evening.
Both men refused to name the suppliers to the temporarily closed shop, whose Ten Commandments for Good Business pinned over empty refrigerated units, include at number 6: "Our customer is not a cold statistic they are flesh and blood human beings with feelings and emotions like our own."
The Shadow Scottish Secretary, Mr George Robertson, called the officials' diffidence very curious at best, and very disturbing at worst." He added: "It is very important that we know why it appeared to take so many days before the emergency buttons were being pressed." His concern was shared by the Scottish Consumer Council.
Mr Forsyth, in contrast, publicly supported the work of the council and health.