Campylobacter jejuni as a cause of acute diarrhoea in children: a study at an urban hospital in Bangladesh.
The importance of C. jejuni as an aetiological agent of childhood diarrhoea was investigated at an urban children's hospital in Dhaka over a period of 1 year. C. jejuni was isolated from 25.5% of 102 diarrhoeal patients compared to 8.6% of 93 age and sex-matched healthy control children studied (P less than 0.002). The organism was isolated as a single pathogen in 17.6% of diarrhoeal patients. No C. coli was detected. The infection rate was significantly higher (P less than 0.05) amongst children up to 1 year of age (32.8%) compared to those aged over 1 year (15.9%). The clinical features of the majority of Campylobacter-positive cases resembled toxin-mediated secretory type diarrhoea. A fourfold rise of antibody titre against autologous Campylobacter strains was observed in the convalescent sera of Campylobacter-positive cases. The findings strongly suggest that C. jejuni is an important aetiological agent of childhood diarrhoea amongst Bengali children and therefore should be looked for in diarrhoeal illness.
Haq
J A
JA
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
Rahman
K M
KM
D000208:Acute Disease; D001459:Bangladesh; D002169:Campylobacter Infections / Q000150:complications*; D016123:Campylobacter jejuni; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003967:Diarrhea / Q000382:microbiology*; D003968:Diarrhea, Infantile / Q000382:microbiology; D006786:Hospitals, Urban; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant