In a press release published on March 15, the Institut Pasteur warns of the increase in resistance to antibiotics in the shigellosis disease, which is currently circulating in France.
Vigilance is key. The Institut Pasteur warned, in a press release published recently, about the antibiotic resistance capacity of the shigellosis disease, which is currently circulating in France.
This announcement from the Institut Pasteur refers to a study on the Shigella bacterium, part of the same family as E.coli or salmonellosis, from which the disease originates. The results were published in Nature Communications magazine on January 26.
Researchers from the National Reference Center for Escherichia coli, Shigella and Salmonella, attached to the Institut Pasteur, have been monitoring this bacterium nationally for many years.
A highly contagious disease
According to the researchers, shigellosis is a diarrheal disease that initially results from a lack of hygiene. Indeed, “shigella” are transmitted by the faecal-oral route. For example, it would be enough for water or food to be contaminated for a person to be infected by ingesting these elements.
“Most often, the transmission is direct, from the patient to his entourage”, indicates the study, adding that “because of its conditions of occurrence, the disease mainly affects children living in poor and overpopulated regions of the planet where sanitary infrastructure and personal hygiene are insufficient”.
It can also affect soldiers in operations in these regions or even tourists and humanitarian personnel. And for good reason, again according to the study, it is enough to be in contact with only ten germs (10 to 100 bacilli) to be contaminated.
However, this disease is also present in France, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Moreover, it is the S. sonnei serogroup that circulates there the most (out of four existing serogroups), and which particularly worries scientists for its resistance to antibiotics. In addition, the Institute has observed for several years a significant increase in cases within the male homosexual community.
Worrisome symptoms
But shigellosis can also be fatal, since according to the Pasteur Institute, 200,000 people die from it each year, including 65,000 children under five.
Once contaminated, the patient can suddenly be affected by abdominal pain, accompanied by “vomiting and the emission of very frequent and numerous stools, glairo-bloody and purulent, even sometimes hemorrhagic” is it written in the press release.
In addition to high fever, complications can aggravate the disease, including dehydration, hypoglycemia that turns into septic shock, kidney failure, intestinal obstruction that can cause peritonitis or malnutrition. These are the causes that are the most dangerous and can lead to the death of the patient.
How to treat?
In cases of diarrheal disease, rehydration is often offered as a treatment, but for shigellosis, this is not enough. This is explained by the fact that the bacterium invades the mucous membrane of the colon and causes an inflammatory reaction which leads to the destruction of the infected tissues and even to remote complications. Antibiotics generally allow rapid recovery without sequelae.
But precisely, the antibiotics most often prescribed, that is to say ampicillin, tetracycline, sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim, chloramphenicol and nalidixic acid are no longer resistant to the strain of S. sonnei and S. flexneri.
This now means having to turn to other rarer and more expensive antibiotics such as fluoroquinolones, 3rd generation cephalosporins and azithromycin, which therefore have little chance of circulating in the countries most in need of them.
The Institut Pasteur considers that it is quite possible that in the future, new epidemics of shigellosis with these strains highly resistant to antibiotics will break out. “Hence the importance and urgency of developing a vaccine. In the male homosexual community, prevention of this new sexually transmitted infection is to be put in place” reminded the researchers.