INTRODUCTION: Enteric fever includes typhoid and paratyphoid fever. Peak incidence is seen in children 5–15 years of age; but in regions where the disease is highly endemic, as in India, children younger than 5 years of age may have the highest infection rates. There are about 22 million new typhoid cases occur each year. Young children in poor, resource limited areas, who make up the majority of the new cases and there is a mortality figures of 215,000 deaths annually. A sharp decline in the rates of complications and mortality due to typhoid fever is observed as a result of introduction of effective antibiotic therapy since 1950s. MDR-ST became endemic in many areas of Asia, including India soon after multidrug-resistant strains of Salmonella enterica serotype typhi (MDR-ST) that were resistant to all the three first-line drugs then in use, namely chloramphenicol, amoxycillin and co-trimoxazole emerged in early 1990s.
MATERIAL AND METHODS: Only blood culture or bone marrow culture positive cases were included. The patients with culture isolated enteric fever were included in the study. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was carried out by disk diffusion method using antibiotic discs. The analysis of the antimicrobial susceptibility was carried out as per CLSI interpretative guidelines.
RESULTS: A total of 82 culture positive cases were included in the present study. 80 culture isolates were from blood culture and 2 from the bone marrow culture. Salmonella entericasubspecies enterica serovartyphi (S typhi) was isolated from 67 (81.70%) patients while Salmonella enterica subspecies entericaserovarparatyphi (S paratyphi A) was isolated from 13 (15.85%) cases and 2 (2.44%) were Salmonella enterica subspecies entericaserovarschottmuelleri (S paratyphi B). Of the 82 cases 65(79.3%) isolates were resistant to ciprofloxacin, 17 (20.7%) were resistant to nalidixic acid, one (1.2%) case each was resistant to Cefotaxime and ceftriaxone, 2 (2.4%) were resistant to chloramphenicol, 10 (12.2%) were resistant and to cotrimoxazole 3 (3.7%) were resistant.
CONCLUSION: In a culture positive cases 65(79.3%) isolates were resistant to ciprofloxacin and 17 (20.7%) were resistant to nalidixic acid. Multidrug resistant isolates were 65(79.3%).
