[1][3] Symptoms generally start one to two days after exposure and include diarrhea, fever, abdominal pain, and feeling the need to pass stools even when the bowels are empty.

[1] Symptoms typically last five to seven days and it may take several months before bowel habits return entirely to normal.

[1] Complications can include reactive arthritis, sepsis, seizures, and hemolytic uremic syndrome.

[1] A 2005 report by the World Health Organization estimated that shigellosis occurs in at least 80 million people and results in about 700,000 deaths a year globally.

Reactive arthritis and hemolytic uremic syndrome are possible sequelae that have been reported in the aftermath of shigellosis.

[9] Shigellosis is caused by a bacterial infection with Shigella,[1] a bacterium that is genetically similar to and was once classified as E.

[1] Shigella is transmitted through the fecal-oral route of individuals infected with the disease, whether or not they are exhibiting symptoms.

[14] The diagnosis of shigellosis is made by isolating the organism from diarrheal fecal sample cultures.

[15] They typically do not produce gas from carbohydrates (with the exception of certain strains of S. flexneri) and tend to be overall biochemically inert.

[16][18][19] Shigella has been a longstanding World Health Organization target for vaccine development, and sharp declines in age-specific diarrhea/dysentery attack rates for this pathogen indicate that natural immunity does develop following exposure; thus, vaccination to prevent the disease should be feasible.

Shigella species are resistant to many antibiotics,[1] so vaccination is an important part of the strategy to reduce morbidity and mortality.

[22] Furthermore, effective medications are often in short supply in developing countries, which carry the majority of the disease burden from Shigella.

Antibiotics, such as trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, ciprofloxacin may be given when the person is very young or very old, when the disease is severe, or when the risk of the infection spreading to other people is high.

Additionally, ampicillin (but not amoxicillin) was effective in treating this disease previously, but now the first choice of drug is pivmecillinam.

Further Bayesian phylogenetic analysis showed that this strain emerged approximately 30 years ago, demonstrating the speed at which antimicrobial drug–resistant pathogens can spread widely through geographically dispersed, but internationally connected, communities.