PLASMID-MEDIATED MULTIDRUG-RESISTANCE IN SALMONELLA-TYPHI IN KUWAIT

Multidrug resistant Salmonella typhi infection is common in Kuwait. Be tween January 1993 and December 1994, 266 strains of S. typhi were iso lated from blood of suspected typhoid fever cases attending the Infect ious Disease Hospital, Kuwait. Of these, 205 strains were isolated fro m patients from the Indian sub-continent, 105 (45%) of which showed re sistance to one or more drugs; 91 of these resistant strains showed re sistance to the oral antimicrobials ampicillin, chloramphenicol, tetra cycline and co-trimoxazole (ACTCo). All 266 isolates were sensitive to fluoroquinolones and cephalosporines. The minimum inhibitory concentr ations (MIC) for ampicillin, chloramphenicol and tetracycline in resis tant strains were >1000 mu g/ml. All 91 strains with ACTCo resistance pattern transferred their resistance to a recipient E. coli strain, wh ereas none of the remaining 14 strains with different resistance patte rns transferred theirs. This paper reaffirms that multidrug resistant S. typhi is quite common in Kuwait and that such resistance is encoded by auto-transferring plasmids.