Incidence and virulence determinants of verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli infections in the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium, in 2008-2010.

ABSTRACT: The incidence of verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli (VTEC) was investigated by PCR in all human stools from Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel (UZB) and in selected stools from six other hospital laboratories in the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium, collected between April 2008 and October 2010. The stools selected to be included in this study were those from patients with hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), patients with a history of bloody diarrhea, patients linked to clusters of diarrhea, children up to the age of 6 years, and stools containing macroscopic blood. Verocytotoxin genes (vtx) were detected significantly more frequently in stools from patients with the selected conditions (2.04%) than in unselected stools from UZB (1.20%) (P = 0.001). VTEC was detected most frequently in pat

SUBMITTER: Buvens G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3318570 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature