Surveillance and analysis of bacterial pathogens of infectious diarrhea in the city of Xi'an from 2003 to 2007

Objective The investigation was conducted to understand the occurrence of diarrhea, the epidemic characteristics and tendency, and the distribution of bacterial pathogens for providing reference data for the development of preventive and clinical therapeutic measures. Methods Stool samples of patients with acute diarrhea who were cared in the diarrhea sentinel surveillance hospitals in the city of Xi'an were collected with anus swabs from 2003 to 2007. After proliferation, the bacteria were inoculated separately in four kinds of culture medium (alkaline protein peptone water, SS, EMB, Chinese blue plate) for testing Vibrio cholera, salmonella, shigella and E. coli. Results Ninety strains were identified from all the samples with a positive rate of 6.87%, of which Shigella bacteria accounted for 85.56%, with salmonella and E. coli also detected. Conclusion The positive bacteria detected from 2003 to 2007 consisted mainly of Shigella bacteria with no Vibrio cholera involved, which primarily revealed the pathogenic spectrum of bacterial diarrhea in the city of Xian.