Campylobacter enteritis in the community.

Campylobacter enteritis in the community Recognition of the importance of Campylobacter jejuni in human enteritis has generated prolific research over the past five years. Although described early this century as a cause of infectious abortion in sheep and suspected as a cause of diarrhoea in man as early as the 1950s,' 2 campylobacter organisms were not generally recognised as common human pathogens until 1977, when the introduction of selective techniques for stool cultures made their isolation possible by suppressing normal faecal flora.3 Now such procedures are used routinely in clinical laboratories, and studies have shown that the organism may be recovered from as many as 15 /o of unselected patients with acute diarrhoea in Britain,4 though isolation rates of 700 are probably more typical.3 In 1980, over 9500 campylobacter infections were reported to the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre in London.5 Campylobacter enteritis is also common in other European countries, North America, Australia, and Africa; its prevalence in some developing countries appears to be even greater than in temperate climates.6