Increased Isolation and Characterization of &lt;i&gt;Shigella sonnei&lt;/i&gt; Obtained from Hospitalized Children in Tehran, Iran

Reza Ranjbar,Malihe Talebi,Mohammad R Pourshafie,Mohammad M Soltan Dallal

doi:10.3329/jhpn.v26i4.1884

Abstract

Shigella flexneri has been the most frequent cause of shigellosis in children in Iran. To evaluate the changes in frequency of serogroups, 302 Shigella species were isolated in 2003 from hospitalized children, aged less than 12 years, with acute diarrhoea in Tehran, Iran. The number of collected S. sonnei, S. flexneri, S. boydii, and S. dysenteriae isolates was 178 (58.9%), 110 (37.4%), 10 (3.3%), and 4 (1.3%) respectively. Most (94%) S. sonnei isolates were resistant to co-trimoxazole. They were, however, relatively or completely sensitive to 15 commonly-used antibiotics. The extracted plasmids showed 12 different profiles with two closely-related patterns constituting 70% of the total isolates. Ribotyping, using PvuII, HindIII or SalI restriction enzymes, generated a single pattern for all S. sonnei isolates. Data suggest that S. sonnei has become the predominant serogroup in children in the hospitals of Tehran.

Highlights

Shigella is the major cause of diarrhoeal diseases in both developing and developed countries [1]
Results of further examination of the S. sonnei strains showed that most (≥94%) S. sonnei isolates were resistant to co-trimoxazole, and ≤6% of the isolates were resistant to nalidixic acid, ampicillin, chloramphenicol, cefixime, and kanamycin
The S. sonnei isolates containing the plasmid profile labelled as P2 and P13 harboured the lowest [3] and the highest [9] number of DNA bands respectively

Summary

Introduction

Shigella is the major cause of diarrhoeal diseases in both developing and developed countries [1]. It was made up of 10% of all diarrhoeal cases during the 1990s among children aged ≤5 years [2]. Of the Shigella species, Shigella flexneri and S. sonnei are the most prevalent serogroups found in developing and industrialized countries respectively. S. dysenteriae is seen mostly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, and S. boydii has been reported worldwide with about 4% of the total shigellosis cases [1]. S. flexneri has been the predominant isolate in Iran [3,4]. The present study was conducted to examine the prevalence of Shigella spp., antibiotic susceptibility patterns, and genetic character-

Methods

Results

Conclusion