According to the Scottish Daily Record, a schoolgirl who died of E. coli O157:H7 may have contracted the killer bug while on holiday in America. Rachel Shaw, eight, died at Yorkhill sick children’s hospital in Glasgow after being taken to the doctor suffering from sickness and diarrhea.

She is believed to have returned recently from a holiday in the States to visit her dad Adam, 34, who lives there. The tragedy has shocked Rachel’s home village of Dalrymple, Ayrshire, where she lived with mum Louise, 37, sister Abby, 11, and brother Daniel, 6.

A source at Dalrymple Primary, where Rachel would have started primary five this week, said: “She was one of the nicest little girls you could ever meet. Everyone is in shock – she would have been coming back to join her class in just a few days.

“So far as I know she had been in America visiting her dad over the school holidays and perhaps it was over there she has picked up the infection.

“I think it was a few days after returning that her mum Louise had taken her to the doctor suffering from diarrhea. “Her condition deteriorated after that and she didn’t recover.”