Spain said Friday there is no evidence its farms are to blame for a bacterial outbreak suspected of leaving five dead and nearly 300 sickened in Germany.

The Spanish agriculture minister said she had spoken to her German counterpart and an investigations is under way. Officials are probing whether the cucumbers were contaminated with E. coli when they were shipped from southern Spain, or if they went bad during shipment or while being handled in Germany, Rosa Aguilar said.
There are different strains of E. coli and the one detected in Germany is extremely rare in Spain, she said. She added, "as of right now, we have to say that there is no evidence that leads one to believe the contamination occurred in the country of origin."
She said the cucumbers have been traced to a specific shipment that has now been destroyed.
The Spanish cucumbers are suspected as possible causes of five deaths and 276 cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, in recent days. HUS is a rare complication arising from an initial infection most commonly associated with E. coli, a bacterium found in undercooked beef or contaminated food.
Nordic authorities say the infection may have spread to Sweden and Denmark.
Spain's health ministry said an EU alert about the health scare in Germany also mentions an unnamed company in the Netherlands. The Dutch Agricultural Industry Association denied the cucumbers had any connection to Dutch growers.
Germany agrees with Spain that the exact cause of the contamination and infection "must be cleared up as soon as possible" and their officials will work closely together to do so, ministry spokesman Holger Eichele said in Berlin.
"We can only speculate at this point about the cause and place of the contamination," he said. "According to experts, it is still completely unclear in what place and in what way the pathogens got onto the produce — be it in Spain, in transport, or in Germany."

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