Klaus Stark, group leader of gastrointestinal infections and zoonotic diseases at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) told Der Tagesspiegel that E. coli O104 appears to be the cause of an E. coli epidemic sweeping Germany, with at least three dead, over 400 sick including 80 cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome.

"It looks right now like it is a type EHEC O104 cause of the disease."

A table of non-O157 STEC (shiga-toxin producing E. coli) outbreaks is available at http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/blog/148324/11/05/16/non-o157-stec-outbreak-table-available. E. coli O104 was the causative agent in a 1994 outbreak in Montana that sickened at least 18 people.

Marian Turner of Nature magazine reports early cases were confined to northern Germany, but this afternoon, the first suspected cases have been reported in the southern German state of Bavaria.