Fast-Track Communication Identification of the Shiga Toxin-Producing Escherichia coli O104:H4 Strain Responsible for a Food Poisoning Outbreak in

strains has been affecting northern Germany since May 2011, with 3,222 patients infected and 39 of them dead by 18 June (4). Around 25 % of the patients developed hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS) (1, 3), a rate which is much higher than was previously reported for patients infected with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli strains (6, 8). The outbreak spread quickly over northern Germany, with some cases in other European countries, and has become one of the big-gest outbreaks of E. coli infections reported so far. As rapid pathogen detection from clinical and environmental samples is crucial for patient management and disease control, we developed a rapid PCR method targeting two virulence de-terminants of the outbreak strain, based on a whole-genome comparative analysis, and then validated the specificity and sensitivity of the method