antibiotic resistance of vibrio cholerae isolates from kashan, iran

aims: cholera is an acute diarrheal disease that can lead to severe dehydration and death. antibiotic resistance is a big challenge in infective disease like cholera. the present study aimed to understand the characteristics and trends of antibiotic resistance of v. cholerae isolations in and around kashan, iran. instrument & methods: in this descriptive cross-sectional study, samples were gathered using census method from 1998 to 2013 in kashan, iran. 1132 fecal samples of patients with acute diarrhea and 237 samples of suspected water samples were taken. the serotypes and biotypes were determined by an enzymatic method. antibiotic susceptibility test was performed by using disk diffusion method. data were analyzed using spss 23 software. fisher-exact and chi-square tests were used to compare the statistical parameters. findings: 96 fecal samples (8.5%) and 18 water samples (7.6%) were positive for vibrio cholerae. non-agglutinating (nag) isolates (75.4%) were more common than serotype inaba (13.2%) and ogawa (11.4%). nag serotypes were mostly resistant to cefixime (44%) and ampicillin (33%). in contaminated water samples also the most frequent cases were nag serotype (50%). nag serotype showed 22.2% of resistance to ampicillin and nitrofurantoin. conclusion: vibrio cholerae isolates in kashan, iran, are highly resistant to antibiotics, especially nag serotypes.