BERLIN - Germany on Monday called crisis talks amid warnings that an outbreak of a highly virulent strain of bacteria found on imported cucumbers has already killed 11 and is spreading.

More than two weeks after the food poisoning outbreak was first reported in the north of the country, the number of confirmed or suspected cases has reached 1,200, according to media reports.

There was no immediate official confirmation of the figure, but the Stockholm-based European Center for Disease Prevention and Control has described the outbreak of potentially deadly strain of E. coli as "one of the largest worldwide and the largest ever reported in Germany".