RESUMO
The aim of this study is to describe the epidemiological and microbiological characteristics and outcome of children with septicemia at the Charles de Gaulle University Pediatric Hospital of Ouagadougou to help improve probabilistic antibiotic therapy in this type of infection. This retrospective descriptive study covered all the children from 0 to 15 years old seen over a period of 7 years in any hospital department with suspected bacteriemia and for whom the bacteriology laboratory performed a blood culture. During the study period, the laboratory received 842 requests for blood cultures and found 154 (18.3%) of them to be positive. Files for 81 of the 154 patients could be found and examined. The distribution according to age showed septicemia was most frequent among those aged 6-15 years (61.7% of the cases). Microbial identification showed the dominant species to be Salmonella enterica (serovars paratyphi and typhi) (58%) followed by Staphylococcus aureus (12.3%). The salmonella isolates had a high rate of resistance to amoxicillin, chloramphenicol and cotrimoxazole. Staphylococci were always sensitive to the antibiotics with which they were tested, although to a lesser extent for penicillin G. All patients routinely received antibiotic treatment, and 81.5% (n=66) were cured (5 children died and 10 left the hospital against medical advice). This study shows that the bacterial epidemiology of septicemia in our setting is dominated by salmonella. Trends in bacterial resistance to antibiotics showed that common antibiotics such as amoxicillin and cotrimoxazole are no longer acceptable as probabilist therapy here. They should be replaced in this type of infection by injectable third generation cephalosporin alone or combined with aminoglycosides.
