Molecular Characterization and Antimicrobial Resistance Profile of Diarrheagenic Escherichia Coli In Under-Five Children in Central Ethiopia
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2024-06-13
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Background: Many children fail to reach their development milestones due to several infection-related health problems in developing countries. One major infection-related health problem in under-five children (UFC) is diarrhea with the highest mortality rate in sub Saharan Africa including Ethiopia. Diarrheagenic Escherichia coli (DEC) is the major causes of diarrhea in UFC. Emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) among DEC and other diarrheagenic bacterial strains including extended-spectrum ß-lactamase (ESBL) and carbapenemase producing E. coli strains are among the major threats to health globally. DEC pathotypes have emerged due to genomic plasticity of the E. coli and are associated with different life-threatening clinical diseases. The epidemiology of DEC and their AMR profile and the genetic background of DEC are not well characterized in Ethiopia. The present study aimed to determine molecular epidemiology and AMR profile of DEC and to provide some genetic insight of DEC pathotypes isolated from UFC from Central Ethiopia. Materials and methods: A health facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted in Addis Ababa and Debre Berhan, Ethiopia between December 2020 and August 2021. A total of 476 stool specimens from UFC (391 diarrheic and 85 non-diarrheic) were collected. Bacterial isolation and identification were done by standard microbiology methods. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was done using disk diffusion. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to further characterize isolates. In addition, a total of 28 selected DEC pathotypes were subjected to whole genome sequence (WGS) analysis. Data analysis was made using SPSS software program version 20. Different web based and available bioinformatic tools including bioinformatics resources were used in the genomic and phylogenetic analysis.
Conclusion: All six common DEC pathotypes that have potential to cause severe diarrheal outbreaks and persistent infections were detected in UFC in the study area. The study showed that DEC has the potential to be a big concern in UFC in Ethiopia. The WGS analysis showed genetically diverse strains of DEC pathotypes that carry VGs and ARGs that have potential to spread through MGEs. The study also showed occurrence of resistant and possibly hyper virulent DEC pathotypes in the area. Therefore, despite the treatment of diarrheic patients empirically it will go to conduct periodic surveillance of the DEC pathotypes in the different health care settings in Ethiopia.
Description
Keywords
Molecular Characterization and Antimicrobial Resistance