Involvement of in the occurrence of community and hospital acquired diarrhea, and its virulence diversity among the stool and the environmental samples.

Transmission of along the food chain could cause gastrointestinal infections. To show this involvement, the prevalence, putative virulence genotype, and antibiotic resistance phenotype of isolates from stool of 1482 patients with community and hospital acquired diarrhea were compared with 87 isolates from the environmental samples. The results showed infection with in 3.4% of the cases, while 57.4% of vegetable samples were contaminated. Significantly higher frequency of (98%), (98%), (98%), and (90%), but lower rate of (39.2%), was detected among the stool isolates. Multi-drug resistance (MDR) phenotype was detected in 25.5% and 4% of the stool and vegetable isolates, respectively. A higher rate of studied virulence genes was detected among the MDR strains non-MDR strains. These results indicate as a causative agent of diarrhea either among the hospitalized patients and those with community-acquired diarrhea.