Enteric bacterial pathogens in stools of residents of urban and rural regions in nigeria: A comparison of patients with and without diarrhoea and controls without diarrhoea

A total of 2,400 stool samples comprising 1,200 from patients with diarrhoea (600 each from urban and rural area) and 1,200 similarly divided controls were obtained from school children and clinic attendants of government and private clinics around three designated study centres of Edo, Lagos and Cross River states, Nigeria. These were screened for the prevalence of bacteria that could cause diarrhoea. Diarrhoea cases in urban areas had a high prevalence rate for Campylobacter spp. (28%), followed by enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (22%), Salmonella spp. (17%), Shigella spp. (14%), Aeromonas spp. (5%), and Yersinia enterocolitica (4%), whereas in rural areas E. coli was the most frequently encountered pathogen (18%), followed by Salmonella spp. (16%), Aeromonas spp. (15%), Shigella spp. (9%), Campylobacter spp. (8%), and Plesiomonas shigelloides (8%). A similar distribution but with lower rates was noted for controls in both urban and rural areas, however, no P. shigelloides was isolated. Results highlight a possible difference between the prevalence of enteric bacteria in rural and urban areas and reveals the strong association of Aeromonas and Plesiomonas species with cases of diarrhoea in Nigeria.