Different Types of Bacteria

Bacilli – Rod Shaped

• Campylobacter - the cause of human enteritis

• Cholera - a disease in which as much as twenty litres of fluid per day are withdrawn from the body, resulting in acidosis, shock, and death

• Clostridium Botulinum - an organism which produces deadly neurotoxins in food

• Clostridium Difficile - a cause of pseudo membranous colitis, a potentially serious form of diarrhoea, caused by taking antibiotics

• Clostridium Perfringens - an organism most frequently responsible for released toxins that cause tissue damage

• Clostridium Tetani - an anaerobic organism thriving on injured or dead wound tissue
• Corynebacterium Diphtheriae - the cause of the disease diphtheria

• Enterobacteriaceae - causes urinary tract infections and such diseases as pneumonia, bacteraemia, and meningitis

• Escherichia Coli - a food-borne bacterium that attacks the digestive tract

• Haemophilus - the prime cause of meningitis in children under the age of three

• Klebsiella - organisms responsible for several respiratory diseases

• Legionella Pneumophila - a pneumonia-like illness that was virtually unknown until an incident in Philadelphia in 1976

• Listeria Monocytogenes - causes many infections including neonatal sepsis, meningitis, spontaneous abortions or stillbirths, and in immunocompromised patients

• Mycobacteria - a class of pathogens that comes in between bacteria and viruses

• Pseudomonas - the cause of melioidosis and numerous infections

• Salmonella - the cause of the varying degrees of gastroenteritis

• Shigellae - the cause of varying degrees of dysentery and enteritis

• Tuberculosis - a severe disease of the lungs

• Yersinia - responsible for the disease yersiniosis, a severe diarrhoeal infection contracted after eating contaminated food

Cocci – Round shaped

• Meningitis - an inflammation of the lining of the brain or spinal cord

• Neisseria - the leading cause of adult meningitis and for the ancient disease of gonorrhoea

• Rickettsia - a unique organism classified between a virus and a bacterium

• Staphylococcus - the cause of various infections, and particularly prevalent in hospitals and care facilities

• Streptococci - the cause of rheumatic fever and various upper respiratory diseases
Other Shapes

• Brucellae - the bacterium that causes the disease called brucellosis or "undulant fever"

• Tularaemia - a widespread zoonotic disease (of lower animals that can be transmitted to humans), being indigenous to many species of animals and insects

• Whooping Cough - a disease transmitted in airborne droplets expelled from an infected person's respiratory tract