Serotyping of Campylobacter jejuni isolated from sporadic cases and outbreaks in British Columbia.

Campylobacter jejuni from sporadic cases and outbreaks of gastroenteritis were serotyped on the basis of heat-extracted soluble thermostable antigens identified with the use of the passive hemagglutination technique. A total of 168 isolates were separated into 45 different types. The largest proportion of the isolates fell into three serotypes, each with 11 to 12.5% of the total number. Three less frequently occurring serotypes each included approximately 5%, and the remaining 50% of the isolates were distributed among 39 other serotypes. In most cases, serotyping demonstrated that epidemiologically linked isolates were of the same serotype, but the outbreak strains could belong either to frequently or to infrequently isolated serotypes. The high correlation between clinical findings and serotyping results confirmed the applicability of the serotyping scheme in epidemiological investigations of C. jejuni infections.