[Clinical and epidemiological aspects of enteritis due to Salmonella hadar. I. Isolation of S. hadar from sporadic diarrhea--clinical and bacteriological study].

Before 1983, S. hadar was seldom isolated from man, animals, food or the environment in Japan: only one strain having been isolated from man and one from the environment. In subsequent years there has been a progressive increase in the number of isolations. S. hadar is now one of the commonest serotypes isolated from cases of sporadic diarrhea in Shizuoka Prefecture (Table 1). However, the epidemiology of S. hadar is not clearly understood. Reports on the clinical features of S. hadar gastroenteritis are also scarce. We examined the clinical symptoms of 15 cases of S. hadar gastroenteritis. S. hadar was encountered in patients of all ages. Infants and young children below 10 years of age constituted 47% of all cases. Seventy per cent of young children below 10 years of age experienced fever of more than 39 degrees C. This incidence was significantly higher than that of general Salmonella gastroenteritis observed in our previous study, in which fever of more than 38 degrees C was noted in 61% of the children. We found one case of presumptive person-to-person spread. No other household contacts of index patients suffered from diarrhea during the same period. Systematic examination for Salmonella contamination was performed for poultry farms, broiler chickens, broiler processing plants and meat on the market. 259 Salmonella strains were isolated from 1197 samples. S. hadar accounted for 37.1% (96) of all isolations (259). A drug resistance test was performed for 51 strains of the diarrhea cases and 67 strains of the environment. The pattern of the distribution of MICs of 9 drugs was similar in the two groups.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

[Clinical and epidemiological aspects of enteritis due to Salmonella hadar. II. Environmental contamination by Salmonella hadar in Shizuoka Prefecture--studies on the feasibility of reducing S. hadar infection].

A systematic examination was performed for environmental food contamination by Salmonella in poultry farms, broiler chickens, broiler processing plants and meat on the market. Salmonella was isolated from 219 of 1197 samples and the serotypes showed a wide distribution. (Table 1-1). S. hadar accounted for 37.1% (96) of all isolations (259). The contamination rate of broiler chickens on arrival at broiler processing plants is relatively low. However, in the broiler processing plants, containers, processing machinery, cooling water and slaughters were highly contaminated by Salmonella, S. hadar being the most prominent serotype in the plants. 64% of chicken meat on the market was contaminated by Salmonella, S. hadar being the second most prominent serotype. 11% of the pork and none of the beef or horseflesh was contaminated by Salmonella. These results indicate that poultry is the main source of S. hadar infection in humans. However, no S. hadar was isolated from cultures of 119 samples of feed for chickens from each delivery (Table 1-1). Thus, as the main source of infection by S. hadar of broiler chickens, an association with the feed seems to be ruled out. S. hadar was isolated at three of 18 poultry farms within Shizuoka Prefecture. Follow-up studies were performed at the three poultry farms which revealed that in two of them, Salmonella was completely eradicated on completion of disinfection. In the other one farm, which is still being disinfected, various strains of Salmonella including S. hadar still survived. We conclude that the main cause of the problem is the magnification of contamination of Salmonella-free material during the process at the broiler processing plants.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

[Epidemiological aspects of enteritis due to Campylobacter jejuni].

From September 1986 through July 1987, all fecal specimens obtained from infants and children who visited the pediatric clinic of the Shizuoka General Hospital with complaints of abdominal pain or diarrhea were examined for thermophilic Campylobacters. Bacteriological and epidemiological studies were performed on household contacts. The mothers of the patients were compared with the mothers of age-matched control subjects. Bacteriological examination of animals in 49 primary schools in Shizuoka city was performed. C. jejuni was isolated from 47 (9.4%) of the 499 feces samples, occupying first place in the bacterial etiology of acute bacterial enteritis. Infants and young children below 10 years of age comprised 81% of the total cases. Fourteen (13%) strains of C. jejuni were isolated in 9 families among 105 household contacts of the index patients. Six symptomatic contacts in two households had eaten the same suspected chicken as the respective index patients. In three families, C. jejuni was isolated from the remainder of the chicken. The serotype of these isolates was identical to that of the isolates from the index cases and the other family members. It was also noted that the same chopping boards were used for the preparation of salads after cleansing with water. In two index cases, the antibody of convalescent serum against C. jejuni isolated from the chicken, as estimated by passive hemagglutination method, ranged from 1:320 to 1:1280. These facts strongly supported the assumption that they had been infected by the chicken. The remaining persons were asymptomatic and the possibility was left that the index cases had been secondarily infected by these carrier persons.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)