abu-hadid told the egyptian press the problem had nothing to do with egypt and instead asserted, "israel is waging a commercial war against egyptian exports." north america canada and the united states reported cases of e. coli infection that had been acquired in europe. on 2 june, canada brought in stricter anti e. coli-related food inspections, and by 3 june the public health agency of canada said no canadians had been reported sick with the strain as of that date. the canadian government also brought in heavier import and hygiene restrictions on eu cucumbers, lettuces, and tomatoes. the united states department of agriculture and the food and drug administration (fda) stated that emerging strains of e. coli are a significant problem, but regulatory bodies in the us have concentrated on the more infamous e. coli o157 serotype. the fda noted nearly all of america's fresh produce is grown in the us and areas of central america, and the eu has not been a significant source of fresh produce for the us. other countries other countries, including nigeria, hong kong, and thailand, expressed concern regarding imported produce. economics by 1 june, italian, austrian, and french cucumber sales had begun to decline sharply, but the austrian health ministry official, dr. pamela rendi-wagner, claimed austrian customers were still safe. on 3 june, the governments of spain, portugal, and germany said they would formally request eu agricultural aid for farmers affected by the outbreak. that day, russia also set up plans for new imports of cucumbers from ukraine, azerbaijan, egypt, and turkey. by 7 june, the eu's farmers had reported they had lost millions of dollars in exports during the outbreak, with fepex, spain's fruit and vegetable industry group, saying its growers had $256,000,000 in turnover. french, swiss, bulgarian, german, dutch, belgian, and portuguese producers have also been similarly affected. that day, the eu proposed issuing £135,000,000 in agricultural compensation to its farmers. the eu agriculture commissioner said the eu's farmers could get back up to 30% of the cost of vegetables they were unable to sell. the eu's health commissioner, john dalli, had formally criticised germany earlier that day for rushing out "premature conclusions" about the source of an outbreak, and only helped to spread alarm among the public and farmers and untimely leading to the damaging the eu's agriculture sector. john dalli also told the eu parliament in strasbourg that claims had to be scientifically sound, unbiased, and fool-proof in nature before it was publicised in future. spain then rejected a €150,000,000/£135,000,000 the european commission's compensation deal for their farmers who were hit by the e. coli outbreak, on 8 june, saying it was too small. france, european union's largest agricultural grower, said it would support the plan to compensate producers hurt by the outbreak, according to the french agriculture minister bruno le maire. ministers from both eu and russia were scheduled to meet on 8 june over russia's earlier decision to ban all its vegetable imports from the eu. on 8 june, the eu's e. coli o104:h4 outbreak was estimated to have cost $2,840,000,000 in human losses (such as sick leave), regardless of material losses (such as dumped cucumbers). consumers across europe were shunning fruit and vegetables en masse by 8 june, as the german government's edict against eating raw cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and sprouts remained on. eu farmers claimed to have losses up to c$417,000,000 a week as ripe vegetables rotted in their fields and warehouses. on 8 june, the eu farm commissioner dacian ciolos said the eu had increased its offer of compensation to farmers for the losses caused by e. coli outbreak to c$210,000,000. cause the outbreak was caused by a strain of e. coli of the serotype o104:h4, that was unusual for having characteristics of both enteroaggregative e. coli and enterohemorrhagic e. coli. the strain has a number of virulence genes typical of enteroaggregative e. coli, including atta, aggr, aap, agga, and aggc, in addition to the shiga toxin variant 2. all bacteria isolated from patients in this outbreak were resistant to beta-lactam antibiotics, third-generation cephalosporins, and partially resistant to nalidixic acid, but susceptible to carbapenems and ciprofloxacin.