Clinical cholera caused by enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli

Abstract

A woman returning from Mexico was hospitalized as an emergency patient with hypovolemic shock due to diarrheal disease of < 1-day duration. Her clinical course was similar to that of severe cholera.sbd.she excreted greater than 60 l of stool and urine in a 4-day period. The etiological agent was a nonenteropathogenic serotype but enterotoxigenic strain of Escherichia coli (063:NM). The patient responded with agglutinating and antitoxic antibodies against this strain and its enterotoxin. An enteropathogenic serotype, 0111:B4, was also isolated, but had no etiological significance.