Multidrug resistant Salmonellae isolated from blood culture samples of suspected typoid patients in Warri, Nigeria

This study investigates the prevalence of R-plasmids in Salmonella sp. isolated from blood samples of suspected typhoid patients in Warri, Nigeria. A total of 136 blood samples were collected between May and December,2009 and screened for the presence of Salmonellae using standard blood culture techniques of which 20(14.7%) was positive for the pathogen. The multidrug resistant (MDR) isolates obtained (n=16; 80.0%), exhibiting the Ampicillin, Chloramphenicol, Cotrimoxazole and Tetracyclin (ACCoT) resistance profile, were subjected to plasmid curing. All (100%) of these MDR isolates bore their resistance markers on plasmids, as they lost their resistance sequel to the curing experiment. The low prevalence (14.7%) of the pathogen in the blood samples indicate that a good number of the suspected typhoid cases may not be incidences of the disease afterall. Furthermore, the high prevalence of MDR and plasmid-mediated MDR (80.0% and 100% respectively) isolates, suggest that treatment failures may be rampant if precise susceptibility test is not conducted prior to prescription. Key words: Multidrug resistant, blood culture, typhoid fever