Read condition-specific symptoms and clinical context for Yersinia enterocolitica. A cold-tolerant gut pathogen, often traced to pork, whose pain can be mistaken for appendicitis.
Y. enterocolitica causes yersiniosis. CDC describes fever, abdominal pain and diarrhea that can be bloody in young children, while older children and adults more often have fever and right-sided abdominal pain that can be confused with appendicitis. Infection is commonly linked to raw or undercooked pork, including contact with someone who has prepared chitlins. The organism tolerates cold: PHAC records survival for 448 days in water between minus 4 and 8 degrees Celsius, and it is motile at room temperature but non-motile at 37 degrees Celsius. Only certain serogroups cause human disease.
CDC lists these symptoms for young children. Its clinical overview gives an incubation period of typically 4 to 6 days, with a range of 1 to 14 days.
Possible symptoms: Fever; Pain in the abdomen; Diarrhea that can be bloody.
CDC states that diarrhea can persist for several weeks. Reactive arthritis and erythema nodosum, painful raised red or purple lesions, are listed complications, usually resolving after 1 to 6 months and within 1 month respectively.
CDC describes a different presentation in older children and adults, which can be mistaken for appendicitis.
Possible symptoms: Fever; Pain on the right side of the abdomen; Sore throat.
Right-sided abdominal pain needs medical assessment; distinguishing yersiniosis from appendicitis is a clinical decision supported by testing, not something symptoms alone settle.
The organism can remain detectable in stool after illness has resolved.
PHAC states that bacteria can still be present in stool weeks after the clinical symptoms have ceased. None of the symptoms listed above apply to this state, and continued shedding is not continuing illness.
Continued shedding is a hygiene and food-handling consideration. Laboratory testing rather than symptoms determines whether the organism is still present.
Source check: 2026-09-19. Educational content; independent scientific review remains pending.