Enterohaemorrhagic E. coli in Germany kills 35 on Sunday

The death toll from a killer bug outbreak centered on Germany rose to 35 Sunday as health officials said it was the worst of its kind on record and the government feared more people could die, AFP reports.

"More fatalities cannot be ruled out, painful though it is to say," Health Minister Daniel Bahr told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, while adding that the number of new cases was in decline.

He said that the continuing fall in the number of new infections gives grounds for optimism. But that does not rule out more cases of EHEC (enterohaemorrhagic E. coli).

Some 3,255 people have also been infected in 14 European countries plus the United States and Canada, according to the World Health Organization. All but five cases were in people from or who had visited Germany.

As the AFP reports after several weeks of searching, German authorities said on Friday they had identified the source as being vegetable sprouts from an organic farm in Lower Saxony, northern Germany.

The farm has been closed and all its products recalled. The farm cultivated sprouts from a variety of products including lettuce, azuki beans, mung beans, fenugreek, alfalfa and lentils, the AFP is writing.