A total of 480 fecal samples were collected from children (less than 3 years old) , ofboth sexes suffering from diarrhea who admitted to The Teaching Hospital of Maternity andPediatrics in Al- Diwaniya governorate, Salmonella spp. were isolated and identified usingbacterial culturing on selective media, in addition to, biochemical and Mini API 20E andserotyping by monovalent antisera. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to detect fimCgene encoding for biosynthesis of fimC of Salmonella

more »

... imurium. The results revealed thatthe rate of Salmonella isolates in fecal samples of patients were (38/480) 7.9% using culturaland Mini API20 E, The results of serotyping revealed that isolates there were 34 belong toSalmonella spp. Of these isolates 30 belong to S . typhimurium, while the remainingbelong to S. enteritidis ( 2 isolates) and S. meunchen (2 isolates), when the PCR techniquewas used to detect the presence of fimC gene, 32 Salmonella isolates were belong to S.typhimurium appeared to contain this gene . The results of this study revealed that thePCR technique had a high specifity (100%) in detection of S. typhimurium in comparison toserotyping.