SEROTYPING AND ANTIBIOTIC SENSITIVITY TESTING OF ENTEROBACTERIAL PATHOGENS IN DIARRHOEAL PATIENTS OF KATHMANDU

Abstract

In a study carried out at National Public Health Laboratory, Teku, 236 samples were collected from the diarrhoeal patients and half of them were The patients below 15 years of age. Altogether 61 pathogens belonging to the family Enterobacteriaceae were isolated. The presence of pathogens in the patterns below 5 years was highly significant (P<0.05%). E coli was most common (68.8%) followed by Salmonella spp. (16.4%) and Shigella spp. (14.7%). Enteropathogenic was E. coli was the most frequent isolate (71.4%) among the pathogenic E. coli. Similarly, Salmonella typhimurium was the commonest salmonellae and Shigella dysenteriae and Shigella flexneri were the most commonly isolated shigellae. Most of the pathogens were sensitive to Ciprofloxacin (72.1%) and least was sensitive to Ampicillin (9.8%). Only 4.9% of the pathogens were sensitive to all the antibiotics tested.