An Assessment of the Current Trends of Antibiotic Resistance of Salmonella Typhi Against 1st Line Antimicrobial Agents in Metropolitan City of Karachi

Abstract

Objectives: To assess current trends of antibiotic resistance against S. typhi in Pakistani population. Methodology: This was a cross-sectional, observational descriptive research conducted in various diagnostic facilities in Karachi-Pakistan from January 2019 to November 2020. A data of 1223 patients, who were reported positive for typhoid fever, was collected from various diagnostic facilities with in the area. Clinical isolates were examined for culture sensitivity by using BACTEC™ and Versa TREK™. Isolates of the Salmonella typhi and para typhi were recovered from blood of the patients. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS version 22.0. Results: Among all isolates, 92.7% (n=1134) isolates were identified as S. typhi and the remaining 7.3% (n=89) as S. paratyphi. Study population suffering from typhoid fever were 58.5% (n=716) male trailed by 41.5% (n=507) female. Similarly, among 1223 clinical isolates, 14.2% (n=174) were non-resistant, 5.4% (n=66) were multi-drug resistant (MDR), 56.4% (n=690) were extensive drug resistant (XDR), 12.7% (n=155) were moving towards multi-drug resistant species trend and 5.7% (n=70) were heading towards XDR. A further 5.6% (n=68) were moving towards ESBL positive typhoid fever. Moreover, 49.1% of the S. typhi isolates were found to be resistant to all the first line antibiotics agents (ampicillin, chloramphenicol and co-trimoxazole) with only 15.2% found to be sensitive to all first line antibiotics drugs. Conclusion: Strains of Salmonella typhi in Karachi are resistant to most of the drugs recommended by local infectious disease society for treatment of typhoid. This is alarming for healthcare policy makers because of lack of newer drugs discovered for treatment of typhoid fever and pathogens isolated for this highly infectious disease being resistant to most of the recommended anti-microbial agents. Keywords: Typhoid fever, Drug resistance, XDR, Salmonella typhi