Escherichia coli
is a completely ordinary bacteria.
Present in the digestive tract of warm-blooded animals, it
“colonizes us all at birth and is normally absolutely not pathogenic”
,
Professor Éric Oswald, Inserm researcher at the Digestive Health Research Institute,
explained to Le Figaro in 2022.
.
But certain strains have acquired virulence factors during the evolution and can prove to be formidable pathogens, causing diarrhea, intestinal inflammation, urinary infections, or even sometimes very serious infections when they reach the blood circulation and thus manage to spread throughout the body.
One of them is particularly formidable in children: hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a rare but serious condition which particularly affects the kidneys.
The cause is not the bacteria themselves, but a toxin that certain strains produce called “Shiga-toxin”.
Able to spread in…
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