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Abstract

The antibiograms of 45 human isolates and 87 animal isolates of Salmonella typhimurium collected from 1990 to 1996 in Taiwan were investigated. The antibiotics used were tetracycline (Te), sulfisoxazole (G), ampicillin (Am), chloramphenicol (C), streptomycin (S), trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (Sxt), kanamycin (K), gentamicin (Gm), norfloxacin (Nor) and cefoperazone (Cfp). Resistance to antibiotics for these Salmonella isolates was studied, and the results obtained for human and animal isolates were compared. It was found that the antibiograms for human and animal isolates are quite similar. The major resistant type for these Salmonella strains is TeGAmSC. Both the human and animal isolates are highly resistant to first-line antibiotics, such as tetracycline, sulfisoxazole, ampicillin, streptomycin of chloramphenicol; but are sensitive to fluoroquinolone antibiotics, such as norfloxacin and the third generation antibiotic of cephalosporin, such as cefoperazone and gentamicin. Between 93% and 100% of the local strains is inhibited by these antibiotics. Also, a significant fraction of these S. typhimurium isolates are multidrug resistant strains. For example, 58.6% of the animal isolates and 68.9% of the human isolates are multidrug-resistant. In conclusion, the antibiograms for human and animal isolates of S. typhimurium are similar. These results may be owing to the fact that Taiwan is geographically a small island and S. typhimurium strains are the common infective strains for human and domestic animals. Also, a high fraction of these strains was found to be drug resistant, which may be attributed to the fact that antibiotics are not strictly restricted for use in Taiwan.

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