In several hospitals in Beirut, Lebanon, 77 isolates of Escherichia coli were successfully derived from the stools of patients with diarrhoeal diseases, by culture on MacConkey or MacConkey-sorbitol agar. When the isolates were screened, using a multiplex PCR, 14 (from 14 different patients) were each found positive for one of the various genes defining the enterotoxigenic (five), enteroinvasive (four), enteroaggregative (three) or enteropathogenic (two) groups. Genotyping of these 14 diarrhoeagenic isolates, by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, indicated that all were genomically distinct with the exception of two of the enteroaggregative isolates (which were of the same genotype). The E. coli apparently involved in diarrhoeal disease in Beirut therefore belong to at least four different diarrhoeagenic groups and show strain variation within each group. Diarrhoea in the absence of diarrhoeagenic E. coli may be the result of infection with bacteria other than E. coli or viral or parasitic enteropathogens.