Usefulness of Genotypic Analysis for Investigation of an Epidemic of Shigella sonnei Infections in Ooami-shirasato Town, Chiba Prefecture

In March 1996, an epidemic of Shigella sonnei infection occurred in Ooamishira-sato Town, Chiba Prefecture. Colicine typing, antibiotic resistance patterns, plasmid profiles, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and random amplified poly-morphic DNA (RAPD) were used for the investigation of the epidemic. Ninety-four isolates from patients exhibited three different colicine types and five different antibiotic resistance patterns. But the patterns of plasmid profile, PFGE and RAPD were uniform among the isolates with different colicine type and antibiotic resistance pattern. It is possible that these isolates belonged to a single bacterial clone and circulated through human to human.