Spain urges Germany to find E. coli source as death toll rises

The Spanish government on Monday urged Germany to speed up its investigation into the origin of an outbreak of E. coli bacterial poisoning blamed on Spanish cucumbers that has now claimed 14 lives and is badly hitting agricultural exports from Andalusia.

"The German government needs to understand that it is not correct to blame Spain," Environmental Minister Rosa Aguilar said after a meeting with local farmers who are suffering heavy losses. Farmers in the province of Almeria calculate their daily losses at some 6 million euros as importers cancel orders not only of cucumbers both also other vegetables and fruit.

Aguilar said Spain had acted quickly to carry out the scientific analysis of the greenhouses where the cucumbers blamed for the outbreak came.

The European Commission said Monday it still did not know the source of the outbreak, and hoped to have the results of tests available by Wednesday at the very latest.