Prevalence of Enteric Fever Pathogens Isolated from Blood Culture at a Tertiary Care Centre

Typhoid fever and paratyphoid fever commonly called as enteric fever is a life-threatening illness caused by Salmonella serotype Typhi and Salmonella serotype Paratyphi, respectively. It is a major public health issue in underdeveloped and developing countries. The aim of the study is to find out the prevalence of enteric fever pathogens in blood culture of patients attending a tertiary care centre.

A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in 3483 blood samples of patients attending a tertiary care centre, with the history and symptoms suspicious of enteric fever during one year period from mid-September 2019 to mid-September 2020 after ethical approval from the institutional review committee. Isolates were identified by standard microbiological methods and tested for in vitro antibiotic susceptibility by modified kirby-bauer disc diffusion method. The obtained data was entered and analyzed in WHONET 5.6 program, point estimate at 95% was calculated along with frequency and proportion for binary data.

In our study, enteric fever pathogens were isolated from 18 (0.51%) blood samples. Out of which, Salmonella Paratyphi A was isolated from 10 (8.19%) and Salmonella Typhi was isolated from 8 (6.55%) blood samples. Other serotypes were not isolated. Antimicrobial susceptibility test showed that salmonella species that was isolated were sensitive to most of the drugs.

Prevalence of enteric fever pathogens was lesser compared to other studies. Varying degrees of antibiotic resistance among isolated enteric fever pathogens necessitates continuous surveillance of the susceptibility patterns. Prudent use of antimicrobials, active infection control practices and stringent antibiotic policy should be implemented to prevent emergence of antibiotic resistance and future outbreaks.