Further to my earlier posting:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/cheal/message/295

A BBC news report yesterday said that the 4 children originally
infected came from the same school. It is not clear if they were on a
school visit. The E.coli 0157 strain was tracked back to Wimpole
Farm. Two child relatives of the children initially infected
subsequently contracted the infection also.

A spokesperson for the Health Protection Agency was quoted as saying
that it may never be known exactly how the children became infected -
it could have been via handling poultry eggs, feeding goats, or
petting animals.

Home Farm Wimpole has a wide range of farm animals and horses. E.
coli 0157 can occur in a range of animals, but housed cattle are
especially at risk, see
http://www.pighealth.com/ecoli.htm

Wimpole Farm is hugely popular with children and thousands visit each
month. Exactly why these particular four children were vulnerable is
a mystery. When visiting the farm myself on a number of occasions I
have noticed that the hand-washing facilites were a bit limited at
busy times, but also, of course, hand-washing
(and not touching face, food or drink in the meantime) after touching
the animals is very much a matter of parental supervision.

The website of Wimpole Hall and Home Farm is:
http://www.wimpole.org
but does not mention the incident.