Author's reply: Looking for tips to find icebergs - surveillance of haemolytic uraemic syndrome to detect outbreaks of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli infection

Koen De Schrijver

doi:10.2807/ese.13.09.08054-en

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Author's reply: Looking for tips to find icebergs - surveillance of haemolytic uraemic syndrome to detect outbreaks of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli infection

Koen De Schrijver¹
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Affiliations: ¹ Department of Epidemiolgy, University of Antwerp Belgium

Correspondence:
Koen De Schrijver
koen.deschrijver ua.ac.be
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Citation style for this article: De Schrijver K. Author's reply: Looking for tips to find icebergs - surveillance of haemolytic uraemic syndrome to detect outbreaks of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli infection. Euro Surveill. 2008;13(9):pii=8054. https://doi.org/10.2807/ese.13.09.08054-en

Abstract

We agree with the authors that active surveillance of haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) patients allows the detection of outbreaks of virulent STEC strains and that underascertainement of verocytotoxin-producing E. coli (VTEC) is explained by the non-routine practice of culturing stools, by the under-use of sorbitol-MacConkey (SMAC) agar, and by the fact that most clinical laboratories do not test for these micro-organisms in routine gastroenteritis samples.