An Outbreak of Diarrhea in Mandera, Kenya, Due to Serogroup O-Nontypable Strain That Had a Coding Gene for Enteroaggregative Heat-Stable Enterotoxin 1.

In an outbreak of gastroenteritis in December 2009, in Mandera, Kenya, O-nontypable (ONT) strain was isolated from stool specimens of patients (18/24, 75%). The ONT organisms could not be assigned to any of the recognized diarrheagenic groups of However, they possessed the enteroaggregative heat-stable enterotoxin-1 gene. The cell-free culture filtrates of the ONT strain isolated from the outbreak cases induced considerable amount of fluid accumulation in suckling mouse intestine, indicating production of an enterotoxic factor(s). These results identify that did not have any diarrheagenic characteristics except as the etiological agent of the diarrheal outbreak in Mandera. It is however considered necessary to characterize the fluid accumulation factor(s) to determine whether any novel toxins were responsible for the fluid accumulation. Moreover, it is important to study dissemination of strains producing the enterotoxic factor(s) to assess their public health significance distribution in the environment.