Vibrio Parahaemolyticus In West Bengal, Several Kilometres Away From The Sea

We report a food-borne outbreak of diarrhoeal illness caused by Vibrio parahaemolyticus associated with consumption of Hindu Puja offerings, a completely vegetarian food. In the month of August 2014, stool samples from five hospitalised patients, was sent to us at Calcutta School Of Tropical Medicine, Kolkata in Cary-Blair transport media from CMOH office of District Hospital, Nandigram, Paschim Midnapore, West Bengal for Bacteriological examination. All the five cases were hospitalised with chief complaint of acute onset of pain abdomen, loose motion and vomiting, associated with fever, developing 24 hours after consumption of Puja offerings. Among 5 samples, 4 were positive for Vibrio parahemolyticus. All the 4 samples showed Kanagawa phenomenon in Wagatsuma agar. Of the 4 positive samples, 3 strains were 04:K8 serovar and 1 was O10:K60. An exhaustive study on serotyping Vibrio parahaemolyticus in the article, “A pulsed-field gel electrophoresis typing scheme for Vibrio parahaemolyticus isolates from fifteen countries” by Hin-chung Wong and his co-authors mention many serotypes but O10:K60 has not been found by them. Hence this is a new serotype causing diarrhoea. All strains were PCR positive for tdh but were negative for trh gene.