More children fall victim to E.coli outbreak

More than one hundred people, mainly children, are suffering from the potentially deadly form of food poisoning E.coli in an outbreak that has swept across 32 schools in south Wales.

As the rising toll of E.coli victims reached 115 last night, four children received specialist treatment for the bug, which can lead to kidney failure if untreated.

A four-year-old boy was airlifted on Saturday to Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool, where two other children, a girl and a boy both aged nine, were already receiving treatment. They are all described as "stable". A girl aged three being treated at a hospital in Bristol is was said to be in a "satisfactory" condition. Twenty five people have been admittted to hospital in the past week.

Although the source has yet to be confirmed, the outbreak has been linked to meat supplied by the Bridgend-based firm Tudor and Sons. The parents of one victim have asked solicitors to press for the official inquiry to be urgent and open. Tudor and Sons, which supplies schools and shops in the affected area, shut down voluntarily last Monday. Environmental officers served a closure notice last week, citing suspected "unsanitary practices". Meat supplied by the firm was withdrawn from all schools and local authority care homes mid-way through the week.

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