Multidrug-Resistant Shiga Toxin–Producing Escherichia coli O118:H16 in Latin America

colistin as therapy for nosocomial infections caused by multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii. Contemporary assessment of antimicrobial susceptibility testing methods for polimyx-in B and colistin: review of available inter-pretative criteria and quality control guidelines. 9. National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS). Methods for dilution antimicrobial susceptibility test for bacteria that grow aerobically. 5th ed. Chromosomal restriction fragment analysis by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. To the Editor: We report the first isolation of a multiple antimicrobial drug–resistant strain of Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O118:H16 from cattle in Latin America. The strain was isolated during a study of fecal STEC in 205 healthy and 139 diarrheic cattle on 12 beef farms in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, in February 2000; one case of STEC was found in a 1-month-old calf with diarrhea. This bovine STEC O118:H16 strain showed resistance to eight antimicrobial substances; the following resistance (R)-genes were detected: ampicillin (bla TEM1-like), kanamycin and neomycin (aphA1), streptomycin (strA/B), sulphame-toxazol (sul2), tetracyclin (tet[A]), trimethoprim (no dfrA1, A5, A7, A12, A14, or A17), and trimethoprim/ sulphamethoxazol. The STEC O118: H16 strain from Brazil was found to be similar for virulence genes (Shiga toxin 1 [stx1], intimin beta 1 [eae β1], and EHEC-hemolysin [E-hlyA]) and for antimicrobial drug resistance to STEC O118:H16 strains, which were isolated in different countries of Europe (1). Beginning in 1986, STEC O118:H16 was identified as an emerging pathogen for calves and humans in Belgium and Germany (2–4). Cattle and human STEC O118:H16 isolates were similar in virulence attributes and antimicrobial drug resistance and belonged to a distinct genetic clone (1). Transmission of these pathogens from cattle to humans on farms was observed (5). Beginning in 1996, STEC O118:H16 has become important as an emerging pathogen in humans and has been associated with bloody diarrhea and hemolytic uremic syndrome (2). Analysis of the antimicrobial resistance profiles showed that >96% of the European STEC O118:H16 strains showed resistance to one or more anti-microbial drugs in contrast to the 10% to 15% drug-resistant strains that were detected among STEC belonging to other serotypes (1,6,7). STEC O118:H16 showing multi-resistance in up to eight different antimicrobial drugs predominated among younger isolates, indicating that drug resistance genes have accumulated over time in STEC O118:H16 strains. The frequency of antimicrobial drug resistance in STEC and Stx-negative E. coli in humans and animals was compared in a study by Schroeder et al. (8). Among human …