Abstract

Enteric fever is a severe public health threat because of the rising antibiotic resistance of Salmonella species in developing countries, especially in its endemic areas like Bangladesh. This retrospective study was aimed to assess the effectiveness of a range of 17 commonly used antimicrobials against Salmonella Typhi and Salmonella Paratyphi A isolated from 601 enteric fever cases in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Conventional biochemical tests were used to identify Salmonella strains and the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method to perform the antibiotic sensitivity in SAIC Digital Diagnostic Lab, Dhaka. The 2017 Clinical Laboratory Standard Institute (CLSI) guideline was employed to interpret the antibiogram results, and statistical software SPSS (version 22.0) to analyze the obtained data. The number of male patients (54.74%) dominated over their female counterparts (45.26%). The patients aged from 1 month to 75 years, with a mean of 19.74±12.79 years. Among 601 Salmonella spp. isolates, S. Typhi (56.57%) prevailed over S. Paratyphi A (43.42%). Both strains showed >85% antimicrobial insusceptibility to three major antibiotics: ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, and amikacin. S. Typhi (65.29%) showed significantly greater resistance to azithromycin compared to S. Paratyhi A (14.9%) (p<0.001). Both pathogens reported over 95% sensitivity to ceftriaxone, cefixime, ceftazidime, amoxiclav, cephalexin, aztreonam, imipenem, and cefuroxime. To conclude, this study found an increased antibiotic resistance of Salmonella spp. to commonly prescribed antibiotics. These findings would help physicians and policymakers make informed decisions and provide better treatment to the affected patients.

Key words: Salmonella, antimicrobials, antimicrobial insusceptibility, antibiotic sensitivity, Dhaka.