Isolation of Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) and Extensively Drug Resistant (XDR) Salmonella typhi from Blood Samples of Patients Attending Tertiary Medical Centre in Dhaka City, Bangladesh

Objective: Almost all year round occurrence of typhoid fever remains a major public health issue in Bangladesh. In recent years, there has been a significant rise in the prevalence of multi-drug resistance Salmonella typhi in Dhaka city. The major objective of this study was to observe the prevalence of multi-drug and Extended drug-resistant patterns of typhoidal Salmonella typhi among the patients attending a tertiary medical center by conventional culture and serologic test. Materials and Methods: Blood was collected by syringe and equally divided between aerobic & anaerobic BacT Alert bottle, 10 mL for paediatrics. Post isolation Salmonella strains were identified and were tested for antibiotic resistance. Results: A total of 600 blood samples of typhoid suspected patients were tested, where 32.5% came out positive, which were identified as Salmonella typhi. These isolates were susceptible to carbapenem drugs but highly resistant to Fluoroquinolones and Aminoglycosides antibiotics. Discussion: It was seen that 73.23% of isolates among male patients were extensively drug-resistant (XDR) meaning that isolates were sensitive against only one or two antibiotics while in the female it was 58.46%. Isolates from Female patients showed higher multi-drug resistant (MDR) (26.15%) isolates resistance to multiple antibiotics in comparison to isolates from the male (16.54%). 87.19% of the strains showed high drug resistance (XDR and MDR). Conclusion: The emergence of XDR and MDR strains of S. typhi in recent years is becoming a significant threat. Although no PAN-Drug resistance (resistant against all tested drugs) was observed in the current study, a high level of XDR and MDR isolates are indicating that the scenario might take place sooner than later.