[Results of a 30-year study of shigellae in a reference laboratory]

In Czechoslovakia in addition to the most frequent species of the genus shigella, S. sonnei, and in addition to serovars of S. flexneri which during the years of investigation accounted for 4-40% of all Shigellae a small number of serovars of sub-groups A (S. dysenteriae) and C (S. boydii) were isolated. The European endemities of S. dysenteriae 2, S. boydii 1 and S. boydii 4 occur regularly and are mostly of local origin, while in Europe uncommon serovars 3, 4, 7, 12 of S. dysenteriae and serovars 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 14, 16 and provisional E 1655/79 of S. boydii were mostly of foreign origin. Of these uncommon serovars only S. boydii 13 was isolated in Kosice in 1986 and is the only one where a foreign origin was proved. In Czechoslovakia all serovars of subgroup B of S. flexneri were isolated, incl. the newly suggested sub-serovars and biochemically aberrant strains of sub-groups B, C and D. An epidemic in a nursery caused by serovar S. flexneri, 4b, where the source of infection was a monkey, was remarkable. As to aberrant strains, the indole-positive variant of S. boydii 1, is remarkable being the first finding in the world.