An incubation period of 2-4 days (range, 1-7 days) is followed by a prodrome of fever, headache, myalgia, and/or malaise. Within the next 12-48 h, diarrhea (with stools containing blood, mucus, and leukocytes), cramping abdominal pain, and fever develop.

• Most cases are self-limited, but illness persists for >1 week in 10-20% of pts and may be confused with inflammatory bowel disease.
• Species other than C. jejuni (e.g., C. fetus) can cause a similar illness in normal hosts or prolonged relapsing systemic disease without a primary focus in immunocompromised pts.
  • - The course may be fulminant, with bacterial seeding of many organs, particularly vascular sites.
  • - Fetal death can result from infection in a pregnant pt.
• Three patterns of extraintestinal infection have been noted: (1) transient bacteremia in a normal host with enteritis (benign course, no specific treatment needed); (2) sustained bacteremia or focal infection in a normal host; and (3) sustained bacteremia or focal infection in a compromised host.
• Complications include reactive arthritis (particularly in persons with the HLA-B27 phenotype) and Guillain-Barré syndrome (in which campylobacters are associated with 20-40% of cases).