Niridazole – in Treatment of Typhoid Fever

Abstract

Niridazole (Ambilhar) was used in the treatment of 20 patients with typhoid fever. The drug was effective in 11 patients. They became afebrile within 5.5 ± 1.5 days. Patients who did not respond were then treated with chloramphenicol and became afebrile within 4.4 ± 10 days. One patient developed a severe drug rash while minor side effects, e. g. headache, nausea, vomiting and aches and pains all over the body, were observed in 4 other patients. The therapy of typhoid fever with niridazole is inferior as compared to chloramphenicol. In vitro niridazole sensitivity tests were carried out in 40 strains of S. typhi and 10 of S. paratyphi which also included the strains isolated in this study. By both disc-diffusion and tube-dilution methods, niridazole was sensitive in concentrations of 20 μg/disc or 20 μg/ml.

Antibacterial Effects of Niridazole

“…The activity against Salmonella spp. is especially well documented [2,6,13,19] and is supported by the authors' in vivo and in vitro experiments. In concentrations of about 16 /(g/ml a bacteriostatic effect was observed in vitro whereas Watson [19] found somewhat lower minimal inhibition concentrations.…”

“…2). This can also account for the failure of therapy with niridazole observed in some humans with typhoid fever [13]. Although the experimental model used here imitates a systemic infection rather than a local colonization of the intestinal tract as found in chronic carriers, our findings do not support the idea of a superiority of niridazolc over other antibiotics in the treat ment of chronic salmonellosis.…”

“…Also treatment of mice infect ed with either S. typhimurium [19] or Sal monella enteritidis [2] was effective. Few reports exist also about human cases of sal monellosis treated with this drug [6,13], All these results confirm the effectiveness of niridazole in the treatment of salmonellosis.…”