International collaborative studies on the prevention, diagnosis, and drug discovery for diarrheal infectious diseases in India

Many diarrhea patients emerge every year in Kolkata, India. The identification of the causative microorganism is very important for treatment of infectious diarrheal diseases. The laboratory examination has been most frequently used for the detection of the agents responsible for the diarrhea. However, the etiological agents have not detected by the method in about 30% stool samples of patients. In addition, it is not clear that the agents responsible for the diarrhea are detected correctly, because the quantitative analysis of the agent in stool has not been carried out. To dissolve these problems, the metagenomic analyses of the stool samples of diarrhea patients in Kolkata were carried out. Especially, the analysis of stool samples of cholera patients was focused in this report.