German restaurant owner baffled by E.coli focus

The proprietor of a German meat-and-potatoes restaurant where a killer E.coli food bug may have struck said on Saturday he was devastated to hear many of his guests were infected by the rare virulent bacteria. "It was like a blow to the head when I heard the news," Joachim Berger said in an interview in the kitchen of his restaurant in Luebeck, 60 km (40 miles) north-east of the outbreak's epicentre in the northern port city of Hamburg.
"We had everyone here tested and everything was disinfected. I paid for the tests myself because safety is important for our guests and employees," he told Reuters. Authorities in Germany have yet to pin down the source of the pathogen, which has killed at least 19 people in Europe and made more than 1,700 ill in 12 countries - all of whom had been travelling in northern Germany.