Incidence of <i>Salmonella</i> Bacteraemia among Patients Attending Selected Hospitals in Katsina State, Nigeria

Abstract

Invasive Salmonellosis or Salmonella bacteremia is an infection cause by eating foods such as milk, eggs, vegetables, meat or water  contaminated by faeces from an infected persons. It remains a threat to public health in many parts of the world especially developing  countries where it becomes endemic. About 21.5 million cases occur per annum world-wide with 200,000 deaths in Asia, Africa and Latin  America. About 80% of deaths due to Salmonella serovars occur in Africa. This research was conducted to find out the incidence of  Salmonella bacteraemia among the patients attending selected hospitals in Katsina State, Nigeria. A total of fourteen (14) Salmonella  serovars were recovered from 300 blood samples collected from patientsthat show some symptoms of invasive salmonellosis and were  subjected to Biochemical and Serological tests. Nine (9) out of the 14 isolates were found to be Salmonella typhi and 5 were Salmonella  paratyphi a. Incidence of Salmonella bacteraemia among the patients screened was found to be highèr among the age group 1-10 (9.7  %), Male (5.1 %), Business men (6 %) , patients using bore hole water (10.7 %), Informal Education status (5%) and untreated status (7.8%)  respectively. These higher incidences observed among the study groups is a threat to public health that require immediate  intervention by the authority .