Health Protection - Open Farms Happy Children
Child Safety in Agriculture
Agriculture has one of the highest fatal accident rates of all industries in the UK. As farms are homes as well as workplaces children are often present and every year they are seriously hurt and even killed.
- Be responsible - keep children safe on your farm
- Farms are not playgrounds - 10 ways you can get hurt on the farm
E coli 0157
E coli 0157 is a bacterium that lives in the gut of animals, including cattle, sheep, deer and goats. It can also be carried by pets and wild birds. Simply carrying the bacterium will not normally cause an animal any harm or illness, but if contacted by humans, the toxins it produces can cause illness ranging from diarrhoea to kidney failure. In some case the illness can be fatal. Young children and the elderly at the greatest risk.
E coli 0157 is unusual in that very few individual organisms are needed to infect humans. People can become infected through a number of routes including the consumption of contaminated foods, direct contact with animals, contact with animal faeces e.g. camping on agricultural land and person-to-person spread both in families and institutions.
A number of outbreaks of E coli 0157 involving children have been associated with educational and recreational visits to open farms. While the hazard from infection resulting from a farm visit is real the risks are readily controlled by simple everyday measures. Primary amongst these is the need for good personal hygiene.