How common are E. coli infections?

How common are E. coli infections?

According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 265,000 STEC infections occur in the United States each year. The STEC O157 strain causes about 36% of these infections and non-O157 STEC strains cause the rest. The actual number of infections is thought to be even higher because many people do not go to their healthcare provider for their illness, many don’t provide a stool sample for testing and many labs do not test for non-O157 STEC strains.