[Phage typing of cholera vibrios with different sets of phages]

A comparative study was made of two sets of Mukerjee and Drozhevkina-Arutyunova's bacteriophages in typing 514 strains of the El Tor vibrios and 45 strains of clasic biotype. It was shown that the Mukerjee or Drozhevkina-Arutyunova's phages could be used for the typing of cholera vibrios. The phages of the latter set prove to detect more phage types (18 against 11); they determine both the phage type and the biotype at the same time. The typing of cholera vibrios of both biotypes is possible, and the percentage of nontyping strains left is comparatively low (5.2 against 23.5 after Mukerjee). A table of the phage correspondence was made; it permits to obtain comparable data in using any set of the typing phages.