Abstract
Stool samples of 616 asymptomatic and 296 diarrhoeic school children were compared for the recovery rate ofAeromonas spp. on ampicillin (10 µg/ml) sheep blood agar. Culture filtrates of isolates were tested for heat-stable enterotoxin by the infant mouse test and haemolysin production with 1% freshly washed rabbit erythrocytes. Stools of 9 (3.0%) diarrhoeic children yielded five strains ofA. hydrophila and four ofA. veronii (two each of biotypessobria andveronii), compared to 12 (1.9%) (p>0.01) asymptomatic children who harbored sevenA. hydrophila and fiveA. caviae strains. Isolates from-diarrhoeic stools were exclusively from children ⩽5 years, while all infected asymptomatic children were ⩾6 years. Culture filtrates of all nine diarrhoeic strains were uniformly enterotoxigenic (intestinal weight ratio >0.083) and produced haemolysin titres >128. These phenotypes where variable in carriage strains ofA. hydrophila but were not detected inA. caviae. The recovery ofA. hydrophila, andA. veronii biotypes from diarrhoeic stools of children ⩽5 years may suggest their involvement in diarrhoea causation in the absence of other diarrhoeagenic agents.
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Utsalo, S.J., Eko, F.O., Antia-Obong, O.E. et al. Aeromonads in acute diarrhoea and asymptomatic infections in Nigerian children. Eur J Epidemiol 11, 171–175 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01719483
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01719483