Antibiotic resistance in campylobacter jejuni in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. A preliminary study

ABSTRACT

To determine the antimicrobial resistance in Campylobacter jejuni isolated from stools of children suffering from diarrhoea/dysentery in our setup against the antimicrobials commonly used as empirical therapy. Study A prospective cross sectional descriptive study. Place and duration of study Department of Microbiology, Army Medical College and Military Hospital, Rawalpindi from 29 August to 29 November 2002. Patients and methods: The study was carried out on eighteen isolates recovered from one hundred stool samples of children up to the age of twelve years admitted with diarrhoea/dysentery in Military hospital, Rawalpindi. The samples were collected in clean polypropylene containers containing Cary Blair medium. These were transported to the Microbiology Department, Army Medical College, Rawalpindi within 1-2 hours. The samples were inoculated on Modified Preston [Oxoid] and Karmali media [Oxoid] beside other routine stool culture media. The cultures were incubated at 42oC under microaerophilic conditions. The growth after 48 hours was provisionally identified by colonial morphology, oxidase test, Gram staining and motility. The organisms were identified to species level by hippurate hydrolysis, urease test, nitrate reduction, catalase test, H2S production, resistance to cephalothin and sensitivity to nalidixic acid. Sensitivity testing was carried by Modified Kirby Bauer disc diffusion technique on lysed horse Blood Agar against ampicillin [10 ug], erythromycin [15ug], tetracycline [10ug], chloramphenicol [30ug], trimethoprim/ sulphamethoxazole [1.25ug/23.75ug], nalidixic acid [30ug] and ciprofloxacin [5ug]. One isolate [7.14%] was resistant to ciprofloxacin, three [16.66%] to chloramphenicol and four [22.22%] to nalidixic acid, five [27.77%] to erythromycin, seven [38.88%] to tetracycline, sixteen [88.88%] to trimethoprim/sulphamethoxazole and ampicillin respectively. The susceptibility pattern reflects variable susceptibility with maximum resistance to ampicillin and trimethoprim/sulphamethoxazole. Four isolates were resistant to nalidixic acid