Update: Incidence of acute gastrointestinal infections and diarrhea, active component, U.S. Armed Forces, 2010-2019

Laboratory, reportable medical event, and medical encounter data were analyzed to identify cases of acute gastrointestinal (GI) infections caused by Campylobacter, nontyphoidal Salmonella, Shigella, Escherichia coli (E. coli), or norovirus, as well as cases of unspecified gastroenteritis/diarrhea among U.S. active component service members during 2010-2019. Unspecified gastroenteritis/ diarrhea diagnoses accounted for 98.8% of identified incident cases (4,135.1 cases per 100,000 person-years [p-yrs]). Campylobacter was the most frequently identified specific etiology (17.6 cases per 100,000 p-yrs), followed by nontyphoidal Salmonella (12.7 cases per 100,000 p-yrs), norovirus (10.8 cases per 100,000 p-yrs), E. coli (7.5 cases per 100,000 p-yrs), and Shigella (3.2 cases per 100,000 p-yrs). Crude annual rates of norovirus, E. coli, Campylobacter, and Salmonella infections and unspecified gastroenteritits/diarrhea increased between 2010 and 2019 while rates of Shigella infections were relatively stable. Among deployed service members during the 10-year period, only 150 cases of the 5 specific causes of gastroenteritis were identified but a total of 20,377 cases of unspecified gastroenteritis/diarrhea were diagnosed (3,062.9 per 100,000 deployed p-yrs).