Salmonella Virchow Infection in an Infant Transmitted by Household Dogs.

Abstract

ABSTRACT. A 4-month-old male infant manifested diarrhea and Salmonella Virchow was isolated from his stool. The pathogen was repeatedly isolated from the infant over one month despite three regimens of treatment with antibiotics, to which the isolate was sensitive. Three household dogs were kept in his home and S. Virchow was isolated from two of them. The infant was admitted to hospital and was treated with antibiotic, then the pathogen was finally eliminated. Antibiotic sensitivity pattern and PFGE pattern produced by restriction enzyme Xba I of the isolate from the infant was completely similar to those of the isolates from the dogs. The above findings indicated that the present S. Virchow infection in the infant was transmitted by the household dogs.

Fecal Shedding of <i>Salmonella</i> spp. in Dogs

“…in dogs varies among individual countries. The isolation rates were reported as 0.53% in Slovakia [6] [7], S. Virchow [15]. In this present study, we isolated S. Enteritidis and S. typhimurium, the Salmonella serovars which has been identified as the primer etiologic agents of human salmonellosis in Turkey [17].…”

“…Household pets can transmit Salmonella spp. to their owners since the agent can be found in the animals feces [1,2,6,8,14,15].…”

Salmonellae in the Environment

“…For instance, Brucellosis (Brucella canis) and septic animal bite (Pasteurella multocida) were associated with dogs, whereas, cat-scratch disease (Bartonella henselae) and abortion and stillbirth (Toxoplasma gondii) were linked with cats (Timbury et al, 2002). These animals have also been found to carry different Salmonella serovars in their guts; both healthy and diseased individuals (Carter & Quinn, 2000;Sato et al, 2000;Van Immerseel et al, 2004). In Japan, a 4-month-old infant manifested with diarrhea and Salmonella Virchow was detected in his stool.…”

“…The same serovar (Virchow), was also detected in faecal samples from two out of three household dogs that were living in close proximity with the infected infant. This finding lead to the conclusion that Salmonella Virchow infection in the infant was transmitted by the household dogs (Sato et al, 2000). In order to determine whether cats can present a potential risk for the transmission of salmonellae to humans, rectal swabs were taken from 278 healthy house cats, 58 dead cats, and 35 group-house cats were examined in Belgium (Van Immerseel et al, 2004).…”

Joint Opinion on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) focused on zoonotic infections

“…The source of the antimicrobial-resistant strain is thought to be imported frozen mice used as food for the reptiles (Anon, 2009). In the USA there have been reports of the transmission of strains of S. Typhimurium and S. Virchow exhibiting multiple drug resistance from pets to humans (CDC, 2001;Sato, Y et al, 2000;Swanson, SJ et al, 2007). In Australia, ornamental fish tanks have been identified as reservoirs for MDR S. Paratyphi variant Java (= S. Java) (Levings, RS et al, 2006).…”