At least 39 dead from E. coli outbreak

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16 June 2011 - 18H04

At least 39 dead from E. coli outbreak

AFP - At least 39 people have died from an outbreak in Germany of a killer

strain of E. coli bacteria but the rate of new infections continues to drop,

authorities said Thursday.

The national health centre, the Koch Institute (RKI), added one fatality

to its daily report on the enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) contamination,

which emerged in early May.

It said the confirmed death toll in Germany itself had risen to 38, in addition

to a woman in Sweden who is believed to have been infected during a visit to

Germany days before she died.

But the number of new infections " is at a significantly lower level than

before " , the RKI said.

German authorities on Friday identified locally grown vegetable sprouts as the

source of the outbreak and lifted a warning against eating raw tomatoes,

cucumbers and lettuce.

The World Health Organisation has reported more than 3,300 cases of infection

with EHEC in 16 countries.

On Tuesday, a two-year-old boy in Germany became the first child to die in the

outbreak, which the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) has called " the

most significant recorded in the world to date. "