The Health Protection Agency has defended its decision to allow a farm at the centre of an E Coli outbreak to remain open despite children falling ill.
Three young children remain seriously ill in hospital after contracting the bug in what could be the largest ever outbreak spread by animals.
Twelve children under the age of 10 who visited Godstone Farm in Surrey, all from the south of England, have contracted the dangerous O157 strain of the illness.
Godstone Farm, which lets children pet and feed animals, was only closed yesterday because control measures brought in by the agency were thought to have worked.
Environmental health officers first inspected it on September 3 after cases of the dangerous O157 strain were reported. Farm managers were told to stop visitors getting in contact with high-risk animals but were allowed to keep their gates open.
A HPA spokeswoman said: "This action has been taken in previous incidents, and is both a proportionate and effective response for the scale of incident at that stage."
It was only when a new case of the bug emerged late on Friday, of someone who had visited the farm before safety measures were introduced, that the farm was asked to close, which it did the following day. The spokeswoman said it was unclear how that person had become infected, but that action was needed "to protect the public from further exposure to infection".
The family of one of the young children left seriously ill have spoken of their "living hell".
Neil Wilson, whose nephew Tommy is one of the sick children, told Sky News: "It's been a living hell. It seems quite surreal going in and seeing him and each day seeing him getting worse and worse, feeding tubes and blood going in. It's just awful, it's been an absolute nightmare." Tommy's mother, named only as Nicola, said: "Tommy is fighting a very hard battle at the moment and hopefully he is winning it."
Four of the youngsters were initially described as being seriously ill, but the Health Protection Agency (HPA) said that the condition of one has improved.
