Enterobacter sakazakii: an emerging microbe with implications for infant health

Enterobacter sakazakii is a motile peritrichous, Gram-negative non-spore
forming facultative anaerobic bacillus belonging to the family
Enterobacteriaceae, genus Enterobacter. The microbe was listed as a new
species in 1980 . Using DNA-DNA hybridisation and biochemical tests
Farmer et al. defined the species and identified fifteen distinct biogroups[1]
with a new biogroup being added recently[2]. Based on genotyping and
biotyping E. sakazakii represents a genetically diverse and taxonomically ill-
defined species.
Enterobacter sakazakii is recognised as an emerging opportunistic pathogen
and is the aetiological agent in rare cases of meningitis, necrotising
enterocolitis and bacteremia in infants[6-15]. Since the first case of meningitis
in an infant iwas described in England in 1958[16], neonatal infections
involving E. sakazakii have been reported from all parts of the developing
world with many of these resulting in the deaths of more than seventy infants