A 5-year-old child presents to the OPD with acute onset of high fever, abdominal cramps, and malaise. The child passes small amounts of bloody mucopurulent stools with increasing tenesmus, and cramps. Most likely cause is

Acute onset of symptoms(fever, abdominal cramps) with dysentery and tenesmus is most likely due to Shigella dysenteriae. Vibrio cholerae results in watery diarrhea with characteristic rice watery stools. Virus such as rotavirus and norovirus causes watery diarrhea through mucosal irritation. Entamoeba histolytica results in gradual onset of symptoms usually 1-3 weeks with dysentry. Reference: Ananthanarayan and Paniker&;s Textbook of Microbiology Tenth edition