The prevalence of bacterial intestinal pathogens in a healthy rural population in southern India.

In a one-year prospective survey bacterial intestinal pathogens unassociated with diarrhoeal episodes were isolated from 20.5% of stool samples from 48.5% of a stratified random sample of the population of a village in southern India. Campylobacter jejuni was the pathogen most frequently isolated, followed by enteropathogenic serotypes of Escherichia coli. The incidence of diarrhoea in the study population was lower than the frequency of isolation of bacterial intestinal pathogens. It is necessary to understand the prevalence of intestinal pathogens in this ecosystem to know the dynamics of intestinal infection and the pathogenesis of diarrhoea.