Distribution and Susceptibilities to Various Antibiotics of Shigella Strains Isolated from Patients with Acute Diarrhea

Abstract

Shigellae are responsible for bacillary dysentery which causes high morbidity especially in developing countries. in this study stool samples of 735 patients whit acute diarrhea were examined and Shigella spp. were isolated in 79(10. 7 %). S.sonnei (44.3 %) was the most frequently isolated pathogen followed by S.boydii (24.0 %) S.flexneri (22.8 %) and S.dysenteriae (8.9 %) respectively. The mean age of patients was 12.85 and 0-5 age group had the highest frequency with a rate of 41.8 %. High resistance rates were found against tetracycline, ampicilline and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (SXT) which were the drug of choice for the therapy of shigellosis until recent years, while quinolones and third generation cephalosporins were found to have highest in-vitro antibacterial activity.