Four-year-old Bodie Elliot from Canterbury, U.K., (right, photo from Kent Online) was struck down with E.coli on a family holiday will now need a kidney transplant, his parents revealed today.

Kent Online reports that parents Vernon and Emma were left devastated after doctors told them.

The couple all had stomach upsets after eating at a hotel in the popular resort of Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt in September 2008.

When they returned home, Bodie quickly became increasingly ill and was taken to hospital.

Bodie nearly died after suffering kidney failure and to be put on dialysis and have a blood transfusion.

But he continues to need hospital care and is now being treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

A consultant there has just told the family Bodie’s kidneys are only functioning at around 50 per cent capacity.

Mr Elliot said the couple remained locked in legal dispute with the hotel over what they claim were poor food hygiene standards that led to themselves and Bodie falling ill after eating a beef lasagne from a buffet.

But in an email to the family, the hotel’s insurers deny any responsibility claiming no other guests reported feeling ill at the time.

It added that the business is regularly inspected for health and hygiene and its procedures found to be "acceptable and appropriate."

Mr Elliott said,

"I will continue to fight for compensation for my son but we also want to make people aware of what a deadly bug this is because we wouldn’t want another family and child to go through what we have."