German Health Minister Says Bacterial Infections Dropping

As sales collapse amid an E. coli scare, a worker throws away cucumbers to be destroyed at an agricultural facility near Bucharest

The German health minister has said there are reasons to hope that a bacterial outbreak that killed at least 24 people may have peaked.

Daniel Bahr, speaking on German television on June 8 said that new cases of E.coli infections were still being registered every day, but that their numbers were dropping.

All but one of the 24 victims of the outbreak were in Germany. German health authorities are still trying to determine the source of the infection, weeks after the outbreak began on May 2.

European vegetable producers have been losing hundreds of millions of euros a week as consumers shunned fresh vegetables suspected of being the source of the outbreak.

compiled from agency reports