Antibiotic Resistance in Campylobacter - An Increasing Challenge

Introduction: Campylobacter spp. are the most commonly isolated bacterial agents of acute diarrhoea in the world. Materials and methods: For 2017, 260 patients were hospitalized with diarrhoea syndrome. Of these, 66 (25.38%) were positive for Campylobacter spp. by cultured and Multiplex PCR. Clinical isolates were tested for susceptibility against 5 antimicrobials. Results: The isolates of Campylobacter 60 (91%) are C. jejuni and 6 (9%), C. coli. All C. jejuni/coli isolates are Azithromycin (AZI) sensitive, and all C. coli isolates are susceptible to Clarythromycin (CLA) and Erythromycin (ER). Three isolates of C. jejuni (5%) are resistant to CLA and 7 (11.6%) to ER. To Ciprofloxacin (CIP) are resistant 35 (58.3%) of C. jejuni isolates and 2 (33.3%) of C. coli. For Tetracycline (TE) the resistance is 23 (38.3%) for C. jejuni and 1 (16.6%) for C. coli, respectively. In C. jejuni there were 3 multiresistant isolates (5%) to CIP-CL-ER-TE simultaneously; also 3 (5%) to CL-ER-CIP and 7 (11.6%) to TE-ER. In C. coli there was 1 (16.6%) TEER-resistant isolate. Discussion: Increased resistance of Campylobacter spp. to the most commonly used antimicrobial agents has been observed. Particularly worrying is the high resistance to Ciprofloxacin, as well as the increasingly common multi-drug resistant isolates.