Prevalence and Antibiotic Resistance Patterns of Aeromonas spp Isolated from Children with Diarrhea in Pediatric Center 2013-14

Aeromonas hydrophila (A. hydrophila)and other motile Aeromonas (A. sobria and A.caviae) are receiving increasing attention as a human pathogens, especially as causative agents of gastroenteritis, wound infections and septicemia. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of Aeromonas in children with diarrhea in city of Tehran and to determine their antibiotic susceptibility. This study was performed on 391 stool samples from Children's Hospital Medical Center, Tehran. Fecal samples were collected and transferred in a transport medium to laboratory. The samples were placed in alkaline peptone water for 24 hours at 37 ° C. Then the samples were cultured on blood agar containing ampicillin, MacConkey and CIN agar. The suspicious colonies were identified with biochemical tests and API kit. The antibiotic susceptibility test was performed for identified isolates. In total 12 isolates (3.1%) were identified as Aeromonas, which were confirmed with API-20E. five strains of Aeromonas caviae (42%), four strains of Aeromonas veronii biovar sobria (33%) and three strains of Aeromonas hydrophila (25%) were identified. All the strains were sensitive to gentamycin, amikacin, cepime, and resistance to ampicillin. Aeromonas species could cause substantial amount of diarrhea in children, therefore in isolation and identification of diarrhea these fecal pathogens also should be considered.