Spain says no proof that Spanish cucumbers caused E.coli outbreak

Spain said on Monday there was no proof that cucumbers from its growers had caused an outbreak of E.coli in Germany that had killed 14 people and that it would be demanding to know why its farmers had been blamed.

An E. coli outbreak linked to contaminated cucumbers that has also made more than 300 seriously ill in Germany has spread to other north European countries and is expected to worsen in the coming week.

Farms in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia have been losing 7-8 million euros a day since last week''s outbreak, according to media reports.

On Thursday, Spain said the European Commission''s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed had said two companies from southern Spain may be involved in the outbreak.

"There is no proof of this and so we will demand explanations from who has attributed this matter to Spain," Diego Lopez Garrido, Secretary of State for the European Union, told journalists on Monday.

The Health Ministry added that while it had removed all suspect cucumbers from sale, there were no associated cases in Spain and it could not be concluded the outbreak stemmed from any handling of the produce.

European health experts on Saturday said the outbreak of hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), which affects the blood, kidneys and, in severe cases, the nervous system, was the largest ever in Germany and one of the biggest of its kind worldwide.