ENTEROTOXIGENICITY AND DRUG SENSITIVITY OF STAPHYLOCOCCI FROM CHILDREN AGED FIVE YEARS AND BELOW WITH SPORADIC DIARRHOEA

ABSTRACTObjective: To investigate the incidence of enterotoxigenic strains of staphylococci inchildren aged five years and below suffering from sporadic diarrhoea and their antibioticsusceptibility pattern.Design: Collection of stool samples from children with sporadic diarrhoea and laboratorybased microbiological analysis.Setting: Microbiology Research Laboratory, Department of Veterinary Microbiology andParasitology, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.Results: Out of one thousand seven hundred and sixty one diarhoeic faecal specimenscollected, one hundred and seven strains of staphylococci were isolated as pure culture.Seventy two of these 107 staphylococci were coagulase positive S. aureus, 33 strainswere S. epidermidis and two strains were S. saprophyticus. Sixty one (84.7%) of 72 isolatesof S. aureus produced enterotoxins. Staphylococcal enterotoxins A was produced singlyby 37(60.7%) of the toxigenic strain, while 12(19.7%) produced enterotoxin D alone.Two strains produced both enterotoxins A and C, six strains produced both enterotoxinsA and D, one strain produced enterotoxins A, C and D while two strains producedenterotoxins A, B, and D. Most strains were resistant to pennicilin, with minimuminhibitory concentrations (MIC) within the range of 1-16m g/ml.Conclusion: Enterotoxigenic strains of S. aureus were recovered from children aged fiveyears and below suffering from sporadic diarhoea. The incidence rate was 3.5% of thesamples investigated. Results of their antibiogram revealed that chloramphenicol,gentamicin, cephalothin and clindamycin would be appropriate for treatment of suchdiarrhoea after the clinical value of the antibiotics in young children has been evaluated

Beta lactamase Production by Staphylococcus aureus from Children with Sporadic Diarrhoea in Ibadan and Ago-Iwoye, Nigeria

Isolates of Staphylococcus aureus from children aged 5 years and below with sporadic diarrhoea were tested for their ability to produce beta-lactamase enzyme. Of the 95 isolates tested 79 (83.2%) were beta-lactamase-producing strains. The study confirms that majority of clinical isolates of S. aureus from diarrhoeic children acquire resistance to the beta-lactam antibiotics as a result of beta-lactamase activity

Sporadic diarrhoea due to Clostridium perfringens in children aged five years and below

In a study to identify the clostridial species associated with sporadic diarrhoea in children aged 5 years and below, clostridia species were isolated from 57 (3%) of 1761 diarrhoeic faecal samples studied. Fifty-one of the clostridial isolates were identified as Clostridium perfringens while the other six isolates were identified as C. bifermentans. Forthy-seven were C. perfringens type A, 4 were C. perfringens type C. Forty-one of C. perfringens type A and 2 of the C. perfringens type C were enterotoxigenic. From this investigation, it was observed that C. perfringens types A and C were involved in cases of sporadic diarrhoea affecting children aged 5 years and below in Ibadan, Nigeria

Metagenomic tracking of microbial consortia of cassava flakes (garri)

The affirmation of several cross-sectional studies on the vulnerability of cassava flakes commonly called 'garri' to microbial attack has long been documented. However, longitudinal data on metagenomic tracking of microbial consortia of this important staple food are scarce. Hence, this study was aimed at tracking the microbial consortia of garri. A total of eight samples (four each from both Nigeria and Republic of Benin markets) were randomly collected aseptically using pre-sterilized aluminum pans and processed through a metagenomic approach, while both the chemical and proximate components of garri were assessed following standard techniques. The analysis of the taxonomic consortia of garri reveals the predomination of bacteria (99.82 and 99.81% for samples from Nigeria and Republic of Benin, respectively) while the remaining sequences matched with the Archae (0.07%), fungi (0.09%) and protozoa (0.09%). A large proportion of the sequences were unclassified at the phylum level (approximately 84.10 and 86.2% for Nigerian and Beninese samples, respectively). The reads of cassava flakes metagenome of both Nigeria and Republic of Benin exhibited analogous level of average GC content with sequence count of between 187773-213444 for samples from Nigeria and 157784-198763 for samples from Republic of Benin. The functional characteristics of the inhabiting metagenomes were found containing the genes encoding for adhesins, bacteriocins, resistance to antibiotics, toxic chemicals as well as toxins and superantigens. Both the chemical and the proximate compositions of the examined garri samples, though exhibited significant disparity, but without any apparent variation in the patterns of metagenomic data. Our findings however revealed bacteria as the major contaminants of these cassava food products. Keywords; Metagenomics, Microorganisms, Cassava flakes (garri), Proximate compositio