Journal:   Emerging Infectious Diseases (CDC)

Title:  Prevalence of Escherichia albertii in raccoons (Procyon lotor) in Japan.

Authors:  Atsushi Hinenoya, Keigo Nagano, Sharda Prasad Awasthi, Noritoshi Hatanaka
and Shinji Yamasaki*

Abstract: Natural reservoirs of Escherichia albertii remain unclear. In this study, we detected E. albertii by PCR in 248 (57.7%) of 430 raccoons from Osaka, Japan, and isolated 143 E. albertii strains from the 62 PCR-positive samples. These data indicate that raccoons could be a natural reservoir of E. albertii in Japan.

Significance: We identified a potential natural reservoir of E. albertii.