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Shigella dysenteriae type 1 (Sd1) represents a particular threat in developing countries because of the severity of the infection and its epidemic potential. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing and molecular subtyping by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and plasmid profiling (PP) of Sd1 isolates collected during two dysentery outbreaks (2013 and 445 cases of bloody diarrhoea) in Central African Republic (CAR) during the period 2003-2004 were reported. Eleven Sd1 comparison strains (CS) acquired by travellers or residents of Africa (n=10) or Asia (n=1) between 1993 and 2003 were also analysed. The 19 Sd1 isolates recovered from CAR outbreaks were multidrug resistant, although susceptible to quinolones and fluoroquinolones. Molecular subtyping by PFGE was more discriminatory than PP. The PFGE using XbaI and NotI restriction enzymes indicated that the two outbreaks were due to two different clones and also revealed a genetic diversity among the CS recovered from outbreak or sporadic cases between 1993 and 2003. This study was the result of a fruitful collaboration between field physicians and microbiologists. The data collected will serve as the basis for establishing long-term monitoring of Sd1 in CAR.

Three clinical isolates of Salmonella enterica recovered between 2000 and 2003 in France and Senegal were found to produce extended-spectrum beta-lactamase CTX-M-15. The two isolates from Senegal were recovered from stool of a hospitalized patient with gastroenteritis in 2000 and from an urine specimen of an out-patient with urinary tract infection in 2001. These S. enterica isolates belonged to serotype Kentucky and were clonally related as determined by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and automated ribotyping. The third isolate of serotype Typhimurium was recovered from a patient hospitalized in France for an acute gastroenteritis acquired in Lebanon. The bla(CTX-M-15) gene was located on two different transferable plasmids, one of which also carried bla(TEM-1), bla(OXA-30), aminoglycoside-, tetracycline-, and sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim resistance genes. ISEcp1 element was found to be located upstream of bla(CTX-M-15) in the same position as reported previously in CTX-M-15-producing Escherichia coli from India and Turkey. This is the first report of bla(CTX-M-15) in the genus Salmonella.