Occurrence of multi-resistant Salmonella typhimurium infection in a pediatric hospital at Calcutta.

Salmonella typhimurium was isolated from 55 (15.9%) of the 347 hospitalized diarrheal children and 14 (11.1%) of the 126 non-diarrheal controls. All the 98 asymptomatic children attending hospital outpatients were negative. Six (3.7%) of the 162 samples of different categories examined from the hospital were positive for S. typhimurium. Finger washing of one female food handler, feces of two cats of the wards, surface of wash basin, lavatory seat and shelf yielded positive isolations. In vitro antibiotic sensitivity testing showed majority of the strains were resistant against commonly used antimicrobial agents while they were uniformly sensitive to norfloxacin and ciprofloxacin. The present study points to cross-infection by multi-resistant S. typhimurium strains in the hospital wards.