The Local reports that Danish Patient Safety Authority (Styrelsen for Patientsikkerhed, DPSA) has confirmed that two children have died as a result of complications related to E. coli poisoning. The two cases are not connected.

Two children – one on the island of Funen and another in the Copenhagen area – died due to a rare complication related to VTEC, a strain of the E. Coli bacteria.

Both children died of kidney failure, but the two tragic cases are not connected. A third child also contracted kidney failure but survived, DPSA said.

A consultant doctor and head of department at Copenhagen infectious disease research institute SSI stressed that the cases were not evidence of an outbreak and that the number of cases was not improbable.