Antibiotic resistance patterns of intestinal Escherichia coli isolates from Nicaraguan children.
In developing countries, diarrhoeal diseases are one of the major causes of death in children under 5 years of age. It is known that diarrhoeagenic Escherichia coli (DEC) is an important aetiological agent of infantile diarrhoea in Nicaragua. However, there are no recent studies on antimicrobial resistance among intestinal E. coli isolates in Nicaraguan children. The aim of the present study was to determine the antimicrobial resistance pattern in a collection of 727 intestinal E. coli isolates from the faeces of children in León, Nicaragua, between March 2005 and September 2006. All samples had been screened previously for the presence of DEC by multiplex PCR. Three hundred and ninety-five non-DEC isolates (270 from children with diarrhoea and 125 from children without diarrhoea) and 332 DEC isolates (241 from children with diarrhoea and 91 from children without diarrhoea) were analysed in this study. In general, antimicrobial resistance among the 727 intestinal E. coli isolates was high for ampicillin (60 %), trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (64 %) and chloramphenicol (11 %). Among individual E. coli categories, enteroaggregative E. coli isolates from children with and without diarrhoea exhibited significantly higher levels of resistance (P<0.05) to ampicillin and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole compared to the other E. coli categories. Resistance to ceftazidime and/or ceftriaxone and a pattern of multi-resistance was related to CTX-M-5- or CTX-M-15-producing E. coli isolates. The results suggest that E. coli isolates from Nicaraguan children have not reached the high levels of resistance to the most common antibiotics used for diarrhoea treatment as in other countries.
Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN), León, Nicaragua.|Department of Laboratory Medicine, Division of Clinical Microbiology, Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital, Huddinge, SE-141 86 Stockholm, Sweden.
Erick
E
Amaya
Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology (MTC), Karolinska Institutet, SE-171 77 Solna, Stockholm, Sweden.|Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN), León, Nicaragua.
Daniel
D
Reyes
Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN), León, Nicaragua.|Department of Laboratory Medicine, Division of Clinical Microbiology, Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital, Huddinge, SE-141 86 Stockholm, Sweden.
Samuel
S
Vilchez
Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN), León, Nicaragua.
Margarita
M
Paniagua
Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology (MTC), Karolinska Institutet, SE-171 77 Solna, Stockholm, Sweden.
Roland
R
Möllby
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Division of Clinical Microbiology, Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital, Huddinge, SE-141 86 Stockholm, Sweden.
Carl Erik
CE
Nord
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Division of Clinical Microbiology, Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital, Huddinge, SE-141 86 Stockholm, Sweden.
Andrej
A
Weintraub
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003967:Diarrhea / Q000382:microbiology*; D024881:Drug Resistance, Bacterial; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D004927:Escherichia coli Infections / Q000382:microbiology*; D005243:Feces / Q000382:microbiology; D006801:Humans; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D009527:Nicaragua
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents