[A rapid screening method for the detection of E. coli O157 by an automated enzyme-linked fluorescent immunoassay]

VIDAS ECO is useful as a rapid method for detecting E. coli O157 from food samples, because one can obtain the results within 1 hour by examining the enrichment broth after a 18 hour incubation. In addition, one can handle a large amount of sample, owing to its simplicity. No false negative were recognized in the present experiment and diffuse outbreak samples cases, which confirmed the usefulness of ECO as a screening method. Besides, regarding ECO positive samples, we could confirm by the following day, that they were false positive, by a combined test using an isolation medium after a bead-enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.