[Epidemiological and microbiological studies on salmonellosis in Russia]

The occurrence of the most important Salmonella serovars in Russia from 1980 to 1993 is reported. Selected Salmonella strains isolated in Russia from 1951 to 1993 were characterized by serotype, phage type, resistance pattern, plasmid profile and detection of aerobactin production. The incidence of salmonellosis was different in the various administrative districts and varied between 0-235 cases/100,000 inhabitants. Since the middle of the eighties both the overall increase of salmonellosis and the replacement of S. typhimurium by S. enteritidis was also demonstrable in Russia. Nosocomial infections due to multiply resistant S. infantis strains and S. typhimurium strains which caused severe septicaemic courses in children were a special epidemic problem. These infections mainly occurred via faecal-oral transmission. In contrast ot Western Europe most of the S. enteritidis strains isolated in Russia belonged to phage type 1/1. Eight phage types were determined additionally. The S. typhimurium strains isolated in nosocomial infections belonged to a definite phage type and carried a 95 MDa plasmid. This plasmid was also detected in the nosocomial S. infantis strains, S. haifa strains, and S. panama strains. All these nosocomial strains formed aerobactin.