PARIS, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- French health research body Pasteur Institute unveiled Thursday that 25 babies were infected between 2006 and 2016 with the same strain of salmonella linked to dairy giant Lactalis's factory where contamination was reported last year.

"Thanks to a new technique that has been used at the Institute since last year, we have been able to go back and test a hundred of isolated strains in infants infected with Agona salmonella," Francois-Xavier Weill, director of the Institute's Salmonella Reference Center said.

"It was discovered that 25 infants had been affected, between 2006 and 2016, with the same strain identified in 2005 and 2017," he told state-run France info radio.

The institute, which is France's reference center for monitoring salmonella, confirmed that in late 2017, 37 babies were infected by Salmonella Agona due to contaminated milk produced by a Lactalis factory in Craon, northwest France.

The "salmonella agona" bacteria is dangerous for very young and elderly, and provokes severe diarrhoea, stomach cramps and vomiting.