Antimicrobial Resistance Pattern of Salmonella Isolates from Gondar University Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Salmonellosis is a major health problem, especially in developing countries. Moreover, Salmonella species are becoming resistant to the commonly used antimicrobials in most parts of the world. Nevertheless, studies on Salmonella are limited in Ethiopia. The aim of this paper is, therefore to determine the antibiotic resistance pattern of Salmonella species isolated from clinical specimens in the Gondar University Teaching
Hospital from September 2001 to August 2005. Data were obtained from the laboratory records on bacterial culture, isolation and antimicrobial sensitivity testing, which were done following the standard and conventional bacteriological methods. From a total of 3363 miscellaneous specimens cultured, 59 yielded Salmonella species. The isolates were from stool (N = 28, 47.5%), blood (N = 25, 42.3%), pus (N = 4, 6.8 %) and urine (N = 2, 3.4 %). Resistance to one or more antibiotics was observed in 94.9% of the isolates, with
multiple drug resistance in 84.7%. 91.5%, 78%, 78%, 64.4%, 44.1% and 10.2% of the Salmonella species, were resistant to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, tetracycline, cotrimoxazole, gentamicin and ciprofloxacin, respectively. Resistance to all the six antibiotics was observed in 3.4% of the isolates. The results demonstrated widespread emergence of ampicillin, tetracycline and chloramphenicol resistant Salmonella isolates. Multiple patterns of antibiogram and predominance of certain multi-resistant isolates were
observed. Comparison with reports from elsewhere in Ethiopia indicated resistance to the commonly available broad spectrum antibiotics is a nation-wide problem. Rational drug use for the currently available potent antibiotics such as the fluoroquinolones should be enforced.

Keywords: salmonellosis, multi-drug resistance, pan-resistance, Salmonella, antibiogram

Ethiopian Pharmaceutical Journal Vol. 25 (2) 2007: pp. 85-90