Burden and transmission of zoonotic foodborne disease in a rural community in Mexico.

BACKGROUND: The foodborne transmission and human health impact of Salmonella and Campylobacter infections have rarely been evaluated at the population level in highly endemic settings. METHODS: A prospective 15-month cohort study of 127 infants and 119 elderly people was combined with animal and food surveillance to determine the incidence and severity of Salmonella and Campylobacter gastroenteritis in a comparatively prosperous rural community in Mexico. RESULTS: Salmonella and Campylobacter were isolated in up to 75% and 57%, respectively, of raw retail meat and in up to 4.5% of ready-to-eat foods. Rates of acute gastroenteritis of any etiology in infants and elderly people were, respectively, 2.1 and 0.7 episodes per person per year. The annual incidence density rate of Salmonella gastroenteritis was 17.8 per 100 infants and 7.9 per 100 elderly people; the rate of Campylobacter gastroenteritis was 11.7 per 100 infants and 0 per 100 elderly people. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis analysis yielded multiple clusters of human, meat, and/or animal Salmonella and Campylobacter isolates with indistinguishable patterns. On average, gastroenteritis episodes with these pathogens lasted 3 days in infants and 2 days in elderly people. Medical attention was sought in 44% of diarrheal episodes in infants and in 26% of diarrheal episodes in elderly people; none required hospitalization. Infants with multidrug-resistant Salmonella gastroenteritis had a higher frequency of bloody stools and medical visits (50% vs 11%; odds ratio, 8.5; P = .04) than those with more susceptible strains. CONCLUSIONS: In this relatively advantaged Mexican rural community, the human health impact of a food chain heavily contaminated with Salmonella and Campylobacter was of low magnitude.

Antimicrobial-resistant Campylobacter in the food chain in Mexico.

We describe prevalence and antimicrobial susceptibility results for thermophilic Campylobacter isolates collected from humans, food, and food-animals in an integrated food chain surveillance network in Mexico. From 2003 to 2006, stool samples were collected from children with diarrhea at state sentinel hospitals. Concurrently, fecal samples from asymptomatic children in kindergartens, as well as raw chicken, pork and beef from retail outlets, and food-animal intestines from slaughterhouses were all collected in 65 cities from four different states. C. jejuni was identified with a standardized hippurate test. Hippurate negative, indoxyl acetate positive isolates were classified as Campylobacter spp. Susceptibility testing was performed by agar dilution according to Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines. A total of 1,259 C. jejuni and 1,797 Campylobacter spp. isolates were recovered from 11,811 samples. Chicken was significantly more contaminated for both intestinal samples (93.6%) and meat products (58.3%), compared with swine (71.4%)/pork (14.6%) samples, and cattle (25.1%)/beef (5.3%) samples (p<0.001). Campylobacter was recovered from 5.1% of children with diarrhea and from 3.2% of asymptomatic children. Chicken was significantly more likely to harbor ciprofloxacin-resistant C. jejuni (85.8%) than swine (62.5%, OR=3.6), cattle (39.8%, OR=9.3), or humans (58.2%, OR=4.4). No significant differences were found for ciprofloxacin-resistant Campylobacter spp. among food-animals, but the rate in food-animals was significantly higher than in humans (84% vs. 56.7%, OR=4.0). Swine was significantly more likely to harbor erythromycin-resistant C. jejuni (14.8%) than chicken (3.5%, OR=4.9), cattle (1.8%, OR=9.3), or humans (3.0%, OR=5.7), and was associated with higher rates of erythromycin-resistant Campylobacter spp. (41.9%) than chicken (10.5%, OR=6.1) and humans (11.9%, OR=5.3). The high resistance rates to ciprofloxacin preclude the use of fluoroquinolones for treatment of campylobacteriosis in Mexico. Our results emphasize the need for ongoing and integrated surveillance of antimicrobial usage and antimicrobial susceptibility in humans and animals.

Incidence, clinical presentation, and antimicrobial resistance trends in Salmonella and Shigella infections from children in Yucatan, Mexico.

BACKGROUND: Salmonella and Shigella cause significant morbidity and mortality among children worldwide. Increased antimicrobial resistance results in greater burden of disease. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From 2005 to 2011, Salmonella and Shigella isolates collected from ill children at a major hospital in Yucatan, Mexico, were subjected to serotyping and antimicrobial susceptibility testing by disk diffusion and agar dilution. The identification of bla CTX, bla CMY, bla SHV, bla TEM, and bla OXA and qnr resistance genes was conducted by PCR and sequencing. RESULTS: Among 2344 children with acute gastroenteritis, salmonellosis decreased from 17.7% in 2005 to 11.2% in 2011 (p < 0.001). In contrast, shigellosis increased from 8.3% in 2010 to 12.1% in 2011. Compared to children with Salmonella, those with Shigella had significantly more bloody stools (59 vs 36%, p < 0.001), dehydration (27 vs 15%, p = 0.031), and seizures (11 vs 3%, p = 0.03). In Salmonella (n = 365), there was a significant decrease in resistance to ampicillin (43 to 16%, p < 0.001), trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (44 to 26%, p = 0.014), and extended-spectrum cephalosporins (27 to 10%, p = 0.009). Reduced susceptibility to ciprofloxacin in Salmonella rose from 30 to 41% (p < 0.001). All ceftriaxone-resistant isolates harbored the bla CMY-2 gene. qnr genes were found in 42 (36%) of the 117 Salmonella isolates with a ciprofloxacin MIC ≥ 0.125 µg/ml. Four were qnrA1 and 38 were qnrB19. Resistance to ampicillin (40%) and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (58%) was common in Shigella (n = 218), but isolates remained fully susceptible to ceftriaxone and ciprofloxacin. CONCLUSION: Illness from Salmonella has decreased while severe Shigella infections have increased among children with gastroenteritis in the Yucatan Peninsula. While Shigella resistance to clinically important antibiotics remained unchanged, resistance to most of these, except ciprofloxacin, declined in Salmonella. bla CMY-2 and qnr genes are common in Salmonella isolates.