Isolation of Enteropathogenic Escherichia Coli from Mothers and Newborn Infants

Studies by various investigators of infants from whom enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) were isolated reveal that many infants were in the first weeks of life and that the majority had an associated diarrhea. Cathie and MacFarlane1(1951) studied 264 cases of infantile diarrhea and found E. coli O111:B4in stool cultures of 16.7% in each of the first two months of life. Shanks and Studzinski2(1952) studied 158 infants with diarrhea, culturing stools for E. coli 055:B5and O111:B4, and found these serotypes in 25.0% of infants under 4 weeks of age. Thomson, Watkins, and Gray3(1956) searched for E. coli O26:B6, 055:B5, and O111:B4in a group of infants, 77.0% of whom were in the first three months of life, and they found 20 infants (18.0%) harboring one of these three types. In 8 of these 20 infants there was