Children's Diarrheal Disease Associated with Campylobacter jejuni

Abstract

As it is well known, Campylobacter jejuni is a common cause of human enteritis. This paper describes the basal examination on Campylobacter and the isolation of Campylobacter jejuni from chickens and C. jejuni, Salmonella and Rota virus from children's diarrheal stool.
The optimum temperature of C. jejuni and C. fetus ss fetus was respectively 36.5°C and 32.5°C in a clinical thioglycolate medium. Both of them attained the growth plateau when they were cultured for 70 hr at 37°C.
The Cary-Blair transport medium was suitable for the stool transportation, because C. jejuni exhibited a high survival rate. The isolation rate of C. jejuni, Salmonella and Rota virus from children's diarrheal stool was respectively 24.8%, 8.1% and 7.6%. C. jejuni was found through out the year, but Salmonella was found frequently in summer, while Rota virus was found in winter. C. jejuni and Salmonella were isolated irrespective of age, however Rota virus was found most (91.3% of the isolated) among infants under two years of age. Five cases were found the mixed infection of C. jejuni and Salmonella, and 2 cases were found of C.jejuni and Rota virus.
C. jejuni isolated from chickens was 18 of 45 droppings (the isolation rate 40.0%), one of 9 wings (11.1%), and none of 3 minced meats. C. jejuni survived very well in milk, the number of organisms decreased gradually when stored at 25°C or 37°C, but retained the initial level at 4° C even after one week. This can not be avoidable in the thinking of infective mechanism of the oganisms.The importance of Campylobacter as a new enteropathogen was discussed.