Salmonella serotypes isolated from man in Malaysia over the 10-year period 1973-1982

The results of serotyping of 10 953 salmonella isolates from humans over a 10-year period, 1973-82 at the Bacteriology Division, Institute for Medical Research, Malaysia are presented. A total of 104 serotypes from 22 'O' groups were encountered; 95 isolates were considered untypable. The three most predominant serotypes, namely Salmonella typhi, S. typhimurium and S. weltevreden together accounted for 54.1% of all isolates whilst the 25 most frequent serotypes accounted for 93.6% of the total. Whilst the commoner serotypes occurred regularly throughout the study period, the rarer ones tended to appear only in one year, when they might be associated with an outbreak, and never again. The pattern of serotypes, though quite similar to the one seen in neighbouring Singapore, is different from those experienced in other places such as Hong Kong, Jakarta, Bangladesh and Manchester.