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An unusually lethal strain of E. coli bacteria has infected more than 1,500 people in Germany, mystifying public health officials, ravaging Spain’s agricultural heartland, and touching off panic in Europe as people weighed whether it was safe to eat raw vegetables.

The source of the outbreak, which has killed at least 16 people — 15 in Germany and a Swede who visited there recently — remained unknown.

Public health officials are alarmed because a startlingly high proportion of those infected suffer from a potentially lethal complication attacking the kidneys, called hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can provoke comas, seizures and stroke. Dr. Robert Tauxe, deputy director of food-borne disease at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said the rate of cases of acute kidney failure in the outbreak was unprecedented. “That makes this an extraordinarily large and severe event,” he said.

While most of the infections were among people who had traveled to northern Germany, the authorities acknowledged that the outbreak had spread to virtually every corner of the country.

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As seven cases of the food poisoning bacteria were diagnosed in Britain, the agency said that the mutant strain was so virulent that sufferers risked spreading the infection to friends and relations through close contact.

With more than 30,000 people travelling between Britain and Germany every day, officials fear the outbreak could take hold here.

The agency said anyone who had recently travelled to Germany should be vigilant about their personal hygiene to minimise the risk of passing on the bacteria, which can attack the kidneys with potentially fatal consequences.

The outbreak is on course to be the world’s “biggest ever”, according to one of the country’s leading microbiologists. The agency added that it was shocked by its “unprecedented” scale and severity. More than 1,600 people have been infected worldwide, mainly in northern Germany. Hundreds have been left seriously ill and at least 18 have died.

It emerged last night that the food bug has struck two Americans who had recently travelled to Hamburg. Both are expected to survive but experts warned that the bacteria could be exported to the US.

The World Health Organisation identified the bacterium as a “completely new” mutant strain which was more toxic and infectious than usual varieties. It is resistant to antibiotics and has an eight-day incubation period, which means that the outbreak may not have reached a peak.

It can cause the deadly complication haemolytic-uraemic syndrome (HUS) which affects the blood and kidneys. The Food Standards Agency said that contaminated produce had not entered the British food chain, although several supermarkets confirmed last night that they were still importing produce from Germany.

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