Birkhead G, Vogt R L, Heun E M, Snyder J T, McClane B A
Vermont Department of Health, Burlington 05402.
J Clin Microbiol. 1988 Mar;26(3):471-4. doi: 10.1128/jcm.26.3.471-474.1988.
Published criteria for implicating Clostridium perfringens as the cause of food-poisoning outbreaks include finding a median fecal C. perfringens spore count of greater than 10(6)/g among specimens from ill persons. We investigated a food-poisoning outbreak with the epidemiologic characteristics of C. perfringens-related disease in a nursing home in which the median fecal spore count for ill patients (2.5 X 10(7)/g) was similar to that for well patients (4.0 X 10(6)/g), making the etiology of the outbreak uncertain. All ill and well patients tested had eaten turkey, the implicated food item. C. perfringens enterotoxin was detected by reverse passive latex agglutination in fecal specimens from six of six ill and none of four well patients who had eaten turkey (P = 0.005), suggesting that this organism had caused the outbreak. This investigation suggests that detection of fecal C. perfringens enterotoxin is a specific way to identify this organism as the causative agent in food-poisoning outbreaks.
将产气荚膜梭菌认定为食物中毒暴发病因的已发布标准包括，在患病者的粪便样本中发现产气荚膜梭菌孢子计数中位数大于10⁶/g。我们对一家养老院中一起具有产气荚膜梭菌相关疾病流行病学特征的食物中毒暴发事件进行了调查，其中患病患者的粪便孢子计数中位数（2.5×10⁷/g）与健康患者的（4.0×10⁶/g）相似，这使得此次暴发的病因不明。所有接受检测的患病和健康患者都食用了被认为是问题食物的火鸡。通过反向被动乳胶凝集试验在食用过火鸡的6名患病患者的粪便样本中检测到了产气荚膜梭菌肠毒素，而在4名食用过火鸡的健康患者中均未检测到（P = 0.005），这表明该病原体导致了此次暴发。这项调查表明，检测粪便中的产气荚膜梭菌肠毒素是确定该病原体为食物中毒暴发致病因子的一种特异性方法。
