Isolation of Providencia heimbachae from human feces.

Providencia heimbachae was first described in 1986. It has been isolated from penguin feces and an aborted bovine fetus. To date, there has been no reported isolation of this organism from human specimens. We now report the isolation of P. heimbachae from the stool of a 23-year-old woman with idiopathic diarrhea. The identity of the human strain was determined biochemically and by DNA relatedness to the type strain of P. heimbachae.