Orange juice-borne diarrhoeal outbreak due to enterotoxigenic escherichia coli

Abstract

During diarrhoeal outbreak at Faridpur in Bareilly District in June 1992, the patients were interviewed and samples of orange juice, sugarcane juice, and water were collected as the suspected vehicle, along with stool samples of the patients. Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli, and enterotoxigenic Klebsiella pneumoniae sub sp. aerogenes were isolated from all juice samples, but not from the water samples. From all the patients with cholera-like syndrome, enterotoxigenic E.coli. were isolated from their stool samples. All the enterotoxigenic E. coli isolates from patients, and one of the orange juice samples had the same antibiogram, showing resistance to cotrimoxazole, carbenicillin doxycycline, streptomycine, tetracycline, and sulphonamides as well as sensitivity to neomycin, gentamicin, nitrofuradention, polymyxin B, nalidixic acid and kanamycin. All isolates of E. coli remained untypable with available specific 0-antisera, except for one isolated from sugarcane juice, which belonged to 0:134 serotype. Isolation of enterotoxiic E. coli from orange juice sample is of public health significance.