Journal des maladies infectieuses et de la thérapie

Abstrait

The Re-emergence of Chloramphenicol Sensitive Salmonella species among Typhoid Fever Patients in the Southern Geographical Zone of Nasarawa State,Nigeria

Ishaleku D, Umeh EU, Amali O,  Gberikon GM

The emergence of drug resistant strains of Salmonella typhi and paratyphi has become the most challenging aspects of typhoid fever treatment due to resistance to the conventional antibiotic therapy. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence and antibiotic susceptibility of Salmonella species among typhoid fever patients. A total of 400 stool samples were collected, processed and identified by standard microbiological method and biochemical tests. Antibiotic susceptibility was determined by disk diffusion method using 8 antibiotics. A total of 196(49.0%) Salmonella species were isolated. Of this, 78 (19.0%) and 118 (29.5%) were Salmonella typhi and Salmonella paratyphi respectively. The antibiotic susceptibility of Salmonella isolates in the study showed a high susceptibility of 85.9% for S. typhi and 86.4% for S. paratyphi to Chloramphenicol. All S. typhi isolates showed a low
susceptibility of 20.5% to Amoxicillin, 14.1% to Amoxicillin/clavulinic acid, and 33.3% to ceftriaxone. 85.2%, 87.4% and 6.9% to Ciprofloxacin, Gentamycin and Tetracycline respectively. Salmonella paratyphi isolates on the other hand also showed higher susceptibility of 89.1%, 83.6%, 80.9%, 79.1% to Amikacin, Ciprofloxacin, Ceftriaxone, Gentamycin and lower susceptibility of 23.6%, 36.4% and 20.9% to Amoxicillin, Amoxicillin/clavulinic acid and Tetracycline respectively. The increasing susceptibility of Salmonella species to Chloramphenicol in this study therefore is a revelation that suggests the necessity for continuous surveillance of cases and re-evaluation of Chloramphenicol therapy in Salmonella infection in Nasarawa South and the state as a whole.