Campylobacter Infection and Guillain-Barré Syndrome in Bangladesh: Clinical epidemiology and comparative microbial genomics

Abstract

Campylobacter spp. are small motile, microaerophilic, S-shaped or spiral rods (0.2-0.5 μm wide by 0.5-5 μm long), gram-negative bacteria. Campylobacter was first described in 1886 by Theodore Escherich (1) in the colon of children who had died of ‘cholera infantum’. The name Campylobacter is derived from a Greek word, which means curved. In 1962, Campylobacter, then still known as ‘related Vibrio’ was described as a rare and opportunistic human pathogen that was isolated from blood culture of humans (2). In 1972, Campylobacter jejuni was first isolated from human diarrheal stools by applying a filtration technique (3). The subsequent development of selective Campylobacter stool culture techniques (4) led to the recognition that C. jejuni was a more common cause of human diarrheal illness.