North American enteritis occurs in Japan

Recently, the Japan National Institute of Infectious Diseases has warned that a dangerous type of inflammatory bowel bacterium that has caused many deaths in North America has appeared in the country. Most hospitals in Japan have been warned about the risk of spreading the bacteria after discovering two infected people.

The process of bacterial infection of the intestine can last for weeks or months, even if an infected person never has symptoms of illness. The possibility of infection usually occurs after the patient is treated with antibiotics.

Common symptoms in people infected with this infection are diarrhea, high fever, abdominal pain, bleeding, nausea, dehydration and weight loss. This bacterium usually develops rapidly when the intestinal balance is lost due to the effects of antibiotics.

In the case of two patients in Japan, they were infected with variant 027, which normally produced more toxins than other types of variants.

Enterocolitis bacteria began to appear in the US and Canada in 2002. A study at 12 hospitals in Canada showed that 117 of the 1,703 infected people died, raising the mortality rate from this type of bacteria to 7%, much higher than the death rate due to common intestinal inflammation.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also warned about the risk of spreading the bacteria, while the first cases of infection have also occurred in Europe.

Enteritis bacteria originated in North America. (Photo: CDC / Kyodo)