A two-year-old girl has died in Sweden after contracting the lethal enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) bacteria, the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control said Tuesday.

"No one has yet identified the source of the contamination," institute spokeswoman Aase Sten told AFP, adding that the case was being investigated.

The girl had fallen ill during a visit to Mora in central Sweden on June 29 and had died a few days later at a hospital in Stockholm, the Dagens Nyheter daily reported.

According to the Institute for Infectious Disease Control, Sweden's last deadly case of EHEC occurred in 2005.

"That case concerned the infection of a single person and not an outbreak. From what we have seen so far, this case too concerns a single incident," the agency said in a statement.

While most strains of E. coli are harmless, EHEC bacteria can produce nausea, diarrhoea and potentially lethal kidney problems, particularly threatening people with weak immune systems such as the elderly and small children.

One hundred cases of non-deadly EHEC infections have been reported in Sweden so far this year, according to statistics from the disease control agency.

Source-AFP
SRM