Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) is a pathotype of Escherichia coli that produces enterotoxins (heat-labile and/or heat-stable) and colonizes the small intestine; it is a major bacterial cause of diarrhoea in low- and middle-income countries and a leading cause of travellers' diarrhoea. Estimates of global burden vary by source: WHO reports about 220 million ETEC diarrhoea episodes per year and pathogen-specific under-5 mortality estimates of roughly 18,700–42,000 depending on the model, while earlier GBD modelling (2010) produced a higher mortality estimate (~157,000 deaths annually). The organism was first described in the late 1960s by R. Bradley Sack and colleagues following studies in South Asia.