Incidence Of Caampylobacter Jejuni And Campylobacter Coil Among Cases Of Diarrhea:

Hesham Said Abdel-monged

Campylobacteria has long been known to cause diarrheal disease in animals,but are also one of the most common causes of diarrhea in humans. The delayin recognizing the importance of these organisms was due to their culturalrequirements which differ from those of Enterobacteria. The interest with theseorganisms has continued to the present and will doubtless continue into theforeseeable future. Today with improved media and isolation procedures theclinical laboratories isolate thermophilic Campylobacteria routinely in everyinvestigation of a diarrheal illness.This work aimed for the isolation of Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli amongcases of diarrhea, the percentage of these organisms in relation to Salmonella andShigella species and the age group with the highest infection withCampylobacteria. The material of our study included 90 infants, children andadults up to the age 18 years. They were randomly chosen from the out-patientclinics of Pediatric and Internal Medicine Department El-Sahel Teaching Hospitaland Abbasia Fever Hospital from both sexes and various age groups. Sixty weresuffering from diarrhea and the remaining thirty were not suffering from diarrheaand were acting as a control group.Stool specimens were collected and were immediately cultured bothmicroaerophilic for the isolation of Campylobacter organisms and aerobically forthe isolation of Salmonella and Shigella species on a variety of enrichment,differential and selective media.Campylobacter jejuni I coli were isolated from stools of 15% of cases and3.3% of healthy controls with no significant statistically (p > 0.05). Salmonellawere isolated from stools of 6.7% of cases and no organisms could be isolatedfrom healthy controls, no Shigella cases were detected in our study. This indicatethat Campylobacteria were the most common bacterial enteric pathogen isolatedfrom diarrheal cases.In this study, the age group < 2 years had the highest incidence of infectionwith Campylobacteria, then the age group 2 - < 12, 12-18 respectively.Our study, in addition to other studies reported from different parts of theworld on the isolation of Campylobacter, suggests that Campylobacters (C. jejuniand C. coli) are an important addition to the growing list of known entericpathogens as causative agents of infective diarrhea.The development of a selective culture medium has now made the isolation ofCampylobacters from faeces a simple matter requiring only a gas pak jar, gasgenerating envelope and an incubator set about 42°C. Animal contact and thesource of water supply were implicated as possible causes of Campylobacterinfection.We recommend that the importance of Campylobacter infection in cases ofdiarrhea be realized and that the appropriate media for detection ofCampylobacter should be used especially in cases were diarrhea is prolonged anddoes not respond to conventional therapy.Clinical laboratories, particularly in pediatric hospitals, should be aware of thisimportant enteric pathogen and should include special isolation techniques forCampylobacter in their routine diagnostic procedures.Because of the high incidence of Campylobacter disease worldwide,contributing to morbidity and high mortality specially in developing countries,there is a need for an effective vaccine to protect against infection by this groupof organisms.