Children hospitalised in France after E.coli outbreak

AFP - Seven children were hospitalised in France with E. coli infections after eating meat that manufacturers said could come from Germany, where an outbreak of the bacteria has killed 38 people.

The children, the youngest of whom is 20 months old, had eaten defrosted hamburgers made by the French company SEB which said the meat was taken from animals slaughtered in three European countries and processed in France.

The cases come after a major E. coli outbreak that killed 39 people -- all in Germany except for one woman who died in Sweden after visiting Germany -- and sickened 3,300 people in 16 countries.

Doctor Michel Foulard of the University Hospital Centre where the children were being treated in Lille, northern France, said one of them was in critical condition.

Officials said the infection was a rare strain of the E. coli bacteria and was not linked to the similar outbreak in Germany.

"There's meat from Germany, there's meat from Belgium and from Holland" in the burgers, SEB chief executive Guy Lamorlette told AFP.

"There are several suppliers. We will have to await the test results to say which is contaminated."

A spokesman for the Regional Health Agency (ARS) in Lille told AFP earlier that the six other children were "in a serious but not worrying state."

Six of the children were hospitalised on Wednesday and a seventh on Thursday, authorities said. They came from different towns in the region and there were no connections between them.

The "Steak Country" burgers were bought in French branches of German supermarket Lidl. SEB said it had recalled them and Lidl said it had removed them from its shelves in France.

The ARS official said the children had suffered from bloody diarrhoea, a symptom that also struck victims of the outbreak in Germany which has been blamed on infected bean sprouts.

"We are certain that this is not the same strain as the bean sprouts in Germany," the head of ARS, Daniel Lenoir, told reporters in Lille, however.

In Brussels, the European Commission said it had been informed of the outbreak but "the origin of the meat has not been confirmed," said Frederic Vincent, spokesman for Health Commissioner John Dalli.

"There's no need to compare with Germany, because this isn't the same strain of the E. coli bacteria. This is different, even if it's as strong," Vincent said.

SEB boss Lamorlette said that the origin of the illness had yet to be confirmed.

"I'm not saying it's false (that the contamination came from the burgers), just that for now nothing is confirmed. It's a possibility, that's all. We have to await the test results before saying anything."

Lamorlette insisted that the suspect meat had been subjected to stringent tests and declared fit for human consumption, suggesting consumer negligence such as under-cooking or refreezing could be to blame.