The new face of enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli infections

摘要

The unprecedented outbreak of Shiga toxin/vero-toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC/VTEC) O104:H4in Germany in May and June 2011 displayed severalnovel epidemiological, microbiological and clinicalfeatures. Infection with STEC/VTEC, also referred toas enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC), with or with-out haemorrhagic uraemic syndrome (HUS), which isusually a disease of pre-school children and equallydistributed among the sexes, affected in the currentoutbreak mostly women over the age of 20 years(87%). In addition, several intriguing microbiologicalcharacteristics of the new epidemic strain have justbeen published [1,2].