Spain has accused Germany of "spreading alarm" and needlessly damaging trade after blaming a deadly E.coli outbreak on "killer cucumbers" imported from Spain.

Spain's authorities went on the defensive as countries across Europe cleared their shelves of the offending vegetables insisting that there was no proof the deadly outbreak had been caused by Spanish vegetables.
Leire Pajin, the Spanish Health Minister, noting that no Spanish cases have been reported, urged Germany to speed up its probe and establish proof of what has caused the outbreak.
Germany's allegations "create alarm and affect the producers of a country without any evidence," she said.
Health authorities in Germany confirmed that 11 had died and more than 1,000 infected in the worst outbreak of its kind.
Cases have also been reported in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. In Britain, three people were taken ill, although they are believed to have contracted the infection while in Germany.

The origin of the outbreak has been blamed on organic cucumbers grown in the Andalusia region of southern Spain and health officials across Europe were yesterday recalling suspected contaminated vegetables from supermarket shelves.
Belgium blocked the imports of Spanish cucumbers, Austria went further with a ban on sales of cucumbers, tomatoes and aubergines grown in Spain.
The Czech Republic recalled Spanish imported cucumbers from shelves and in Italy food inspectors have been testing Spanish imports but have so far failed to detect contamination.
Spain's Secretary of State for European Affairs, Diego Lopez Garrido, said Madrid might take action against those pointing fingers at his southern European nation.
"You can't attribute the origin of this sickness to Spain," Lopez Garrido told reporters in Brussels. "There is no proof and that's why we are going to demand accountability from those who have blamed Spain for this matter."
The two greenhouses in Spain's southern region of Andalusia that were identified as the source of the contaminated cucumbers had ceased activities pending a full investigation.
Water and soil samples from the site are being analysed to see whether they were the problem, and the results are expected Tuesday or Wednesday.
"The Andalusian authorities are investigating to find out where the contamination comes from and when it took place," said a spokesman for Spanish food safety agency (AESA)
"This type of bacteria can contaminate at the origin or during handling of the product."
The E.coli bacteria can cause severe diarrhoea and, more seriously blood clots of the digestive system, which can cause kidney failure and death.
The Stockholm-based European centre for prevention and control of diseases (ECDC) has said the epidemic is one of the biggest of this kind in the world.
Ron Cutler, a British microbiologist, said: "It contains some very nasty toxins which can go straight to your kidneys and cause kidney failure, and it's very difficult to treat.
"For those who are treated, around 90 per cent of treatments can be successful, but one in 10 of those people could have damaged kidneys in later life."
In Germany, the worst hit area was the northern city of Hamburg, where by Monday morning at least 467 cases of intestinal infection have been recorded.
Both Britain’s Food Standards Agency and the Health Protection Agency has tried to reassure consumers that Britain is unaffected from the outbreak of E.coli.
The FSA has said: “There is currently no evidence that any affected organic cucumbers from the sources identified have been distributed to the UK,” while the HPA has said there are just three people in Britain are ill after suffering the E.coli infection. All of them are German nationals.
Britain, however, is hugely reliant on imports of salad from around the world, especially from Spain and the Netherlands. Goverment figures indicate that Britain imported £160 million worth of lettuce, compared with exports of just £8.7 million in 2009.

 

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