“…Given the source specificity of certain subtypes of the pathogen in question and assuming a unidirectional transmission pathway from sources to humans (with humans representing the endpoint), the relative contribution of each source to human cases can be inferred probabilistically by comparing the pathogen subtype distributions in humans and sources. While source attribution studies for pathogens like Salmonella , Campylobacter and Listeria based on the microbial subtyping approach have been performed in many countries worldwide (Barco, Barrucci, Olsen, & Ricci, ; Boysen et al., ; David et al., ; Guo et al., ; de Knegt, Pires, & Hald, ; Levesque et al., ; Little, Pires, Gillespie, Grant, & Nichols, ; Mossong et al., ; Mughini‐Gras & van Pelt, ; Mughini‐Gras et al., ; Mughini‐Gras, Barrucci, et al. ; Mughini‐Gras, Enserink, et al., ; Mughini‐Gras, Smid, et al., ; Mullner, Jones, et al., ; Mullner, Spencer, et al., ; Pires & Hald, ; Pires et al., ; Sheppard et al., ; Strachan et al., ; Wahlstrom, Andersson, Plym‐Forshell, & Pires, ; Wilson et al., ), no comparable study on STEC has been performed so far.…”