title: Diarrheagenic pathogens in polymicrobial infections.
abstract: During systematic active surveillance of the causes of diarrhea in patients admitted to the Infectious Diseases and Beliaghata General Hospital in Kolkata, India, we looked for 26 known gastrointestinal pathogens in fecal samples from 2,748 patients. Samples from about one-third (29%) of the patients contained multiple pathogens. Polymicrobial infections frequently contained Vibrio cholerae O1 and rotavirus. When these agents were present, some co-infecting agents were found significantly less often (p = 10 (-5) to 10 (-33), some were detected significantly more often (p = 10 (-5) to 10 (-26), and others were detected equally as often as when V. cholerae O1 or rotavirus was absent. When data were stratified by patient age and season, many nonrandom associations remained statistically significant. The causes and effects of these nonrandom associations remain unknown.
authors.affiliation: University of Maryland Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: Brianna
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lindsay
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ramamurthy
authors.forename: Sourav
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sen Gupta
authors.forename: Yoshifumi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Takeda
authors.forename: Krishnan
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rajendran
authors.forename: G Balakrish
authors.initials: GB
authors.lastname: Nair
authors.forename: O Colin
authors.initials: OC
authors.lastname: Stine
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002771:Cholera / Q000382:microbiology / Q000821:virology; D003967:Diarrhea / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000821:virology*; D005243:Feces / Q000382:microbiology / Q000821:virology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012401:Rotavirus / Q000502:physiology; D012400:Rotavirus Infections / Q000382:microbiology / Q000821:virology; D041241:Vibrio cholerae O1 / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult