The Aetiology of Enteric Fever in Abuja, North Central Nigeria

This book “The Aetiology of Enteric Fever in Abuja, North Central Nigeria” highlights the need for proper medical laboratory diagnosis of enteric fever prior to prescription of antibiotics for suspected patients.The use of blood and faecal cultures for the laboratory diagnosis of enteric fever in this work revealed so much. Identification of isolates was by usual bacteriological techniques including biochemical and serological methods. Of the 90 (3.2%) blood culture isolates, Salmonella enterica serotype typhi accounted for 68 (75.6%), Salmonella paratyphi A, 4 (4.4%), Salmonella paratyphi B, 16 (17.8%) and Salmonella paratyphi C, 2 (2.2%). Of the 159 (1.6%) faecal isolates, Salmonella enterica serotype typhi accounted for 95 (59.8%), Salmonella paratyphi A, 15 (9.4%), Salmonella paratyphi B, 31 (19.5%), Salmonella paratyphi C, 10 (6.3%), and Salmonella typhimurium, 8 (5.0%).The antibiotic susceptibility pattern from both blood and faecal isolates is highly revealing.The laboratory diagnosis of enteric fever entails the isolation of the aetiologic agent and the determination of its susceptibility patterns to commonly used antimicrobial drugs for proper patient management.