The Minister for Agriculture and Food, Simon Coveney, has offered the condolences of the Irish people to the German authorities in relation to the E.coli outbreak, which has left at least 25 people dead.

Speaking at an emergency meeting of the Council of Agriculture Ministers, Minister Coveney said that at this point, it is ‘important to restore confidence for consumers'.

Also speaking at the meeting, the EU Food Safety Commissioner, John Dalli, insisted that the European Commission was sparing no effort to find the source of contamination. He confirmed that while the epicentre of the outbreak has been identified as Hamburg in northern Germany, the source has not yet been identified.

The outbreak, which has affected over 2,700 people and left at least 25 dead, has been caused by Shiga toxin-producing E.coli (STEC). STEC is a group of E.coli strains capable of producing Shiga toxins, which have the potential to cause severe diseases in humans, including haemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious disease of the kidneys.

According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, since May 2, 722 cases of HUS and 2,021 non-HUS STEC cases have been reported in EU member states. The vast majority of these have been in Germany. No cases have been reported in Ireland so far.

The source of contamination has so far been wrongly blamed on cucumbers from Spain and beansprouts from Germany.

Commissioner Dalli called for renewed efforts to be made to identify the source of contamination and asked for the full cooperation and solidarity of EU member states in this task.

Earlier this week, the German Minister for Health, Daniel Bahr, said that while the all-clear could not be given, it appeared as if the ‘worst is behind us'. However, he added that more deaths are still to be expected.