There is no specific therapy for HUS and most patients require prolonged clinical and outpatient treatment.
Healthcare costs associated with such infections are thus very significant.
The only area where non-O157 STEC have been isolated less frequently than O157 in recent studies of diarrhoea is North America, where they are isolated about half as frequently as O157. The development of an animal model that reflects human disease should be a high priority. As Shiga toxin is the primary cause of disease resulting from STEC infection, a research priority should be to determine how toxin is regulated in vivo and how and where it is absorbed. It is also important to elucidate the pathogenic significance of each of the different toxin types. The ecology and biology of toxin phages must also be determined.