Analysis of distribution and antimicrobial resistance of enteric pathogens among children / 中国感染与化疗杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the distribution,epidemiologic features and antibiotic resistance of the enteric pathogens i-solated from children with diarrhea.Methods Enteric pathogens were isolated from children’s stool samples.The children with diarrhea were treated in the outpatient and inpatient of Shanghai Children’s Hospital between 2008 and 2013.Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was conducted by disk diffusion method for Salmonella and Shigella with 6 antimicrobial agents.Results A total of 545 enteric pathogens were collected.Salmonella was the dominant pathogen,accounting for 67.2%,followed by Shigella (20.7%),S.aureus (4.6%),C.jejuni (3.7%),Aeromonas (2.4%),and enteropathogenic E.coli (0.9%).The main serotypes of Salmonella were S.typhimurium and S.enteritidis.Approximately 56.3% of the patients were boys.A-bout 72.7% of the patients were infants under 2 years.The prevalence of diarrhea peaked in summer and autumn (72.9%). The susceptibility of these isolates was only tested with seven antibiotics.Shigella showed higher level of resistance to ampicil-lin and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole than Salmonella (P<0.05).Significantly higher percentage of S.flexneri isolates were resistant to sulbactam-ampicillin,ceftriaxone,ciprofloxacin,and chloramphenicol than S.sonnei (P<0.001).Further-more,the prevalence of multidrug resistant strains in Shigella (68.3%)was much higher than that in Salmonella (44.7%,P<0.001).Conclusions A variety of diarrhea-causing enteric pathogens are isolated from the children in Shanghai Children’s Hospital.The isolates are predominantly Salmonella and Shigella species.The epidemiological features of Salmonella and Shigella species are different in terms of gender,age,season and geographical distribution.The resistance to antibiotics is a serious problem and varies with different types of pathogens. Intensive and ongoing surveillance of enteric pathogens and their changing resistant pattern is required to control diar-rhea in children.