Among 111 children presenting with bloody diarrhea in a multicenter study of molecular testing in US emergency departments, we found viral pathogens in 18%, bacteria in 48%, protozoa in 2%, and no pathogens detected in 38%.

A.L.L reports funding that goes to institution from BioMerieux, Cepheid and Diasorin. All other authors report no potential conflict of interest.

We thank all the field support staff who participated in this project.This study was partly funded by grants from the NIH (R01AI135114 and K24166087 to DTL). The IMPACT study was supported by the NIH with additional funding from BioFire Diagnostics (now bioMerieux). This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health under Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award NIH Award Number 1T32TR00432

I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.

Yes

The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

The study was approved by the institutional review board at each institution.

I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals.

Yes

I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).

Yes

I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable.

Yes

All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors.