Intestinal occurrence of Campylobacter fetus subspecies jejuni and Clostridium difficile in children in Sweden.

Stool samples were cultured from 356 children in different states of health and in different age groups between birth and six years of age in order to investigate the occurrence of Campylobacter jejuni and Clostridium difficile. Campylobacter jejuni was isolated from two of 56 children with diarrhoea but was not isolated from any of 300 healthy children or children recently treated with antibiotics. Campylobacter jejuni does not seem to be a common cause of diarrhoea in children in Sweden and is definitely not a member of the normal fecal flora. Clostridium difficile was isolated from 17 of 100 healthy children one week to one year old, and from one of 100 perinatal children. About the same isolation frequency was found in children with diarrhoea and in children recently treated with antibiotics. A total of 34 isolates of Clostridium difficile were obtained, 29 of which were from children less than one year old. The isolation of Clostridium difficile in stools of children should in most cases be considered a normal finding.