Serotypes of Bacillus cereus from outbreaks of food poisoning and from routine foods

A provisional serotyping scheme was used to type cultures of Bacillus cereus from 84 outbreaks of food poisoning in seven countries; 283 of the 337 (84%) cultures tested were typable. In 35 of the 61 outbreaks associated with a vomiting-type syndrome, foods, clinical specimens or both yielded H-serotype 1 only. Type 1 strains together with other sterotypes were isolated in seven outbreaks. In 14 outbreaks types 3, 4, 5, 8 or a mixture of serotypes were present. Untypable strains were isolated in five outbreaks. Two of the nine diarrhoeal-type outbreaks yielded serotype 1 only. Types 2, 6, 8, 9, 10 and a mixture of type 12 and an untypable strain appeared to be responsible for one outbreak each. Although 16 of the 18 recognized serotypes were present among cultures of B. cereus from various routine foods, only 156 of the 400 (39%) isolates tested were typable.