771 Shigella strains isolated in a 15-year period from Americans living in Ankara. Comparisons with Shigella strains isolated from Turkish natives
Berkman, E.
Mikrobiyoloji Bulteni 10(4): 473-499
1976
ISSN/ISBN: 0374-9096 PMID: 790107 Document Number: 102906
The author had worked as a bacteriologist in Ankara American Air Force Hospital from 1958 to 1972. During this period of time he was able to isolate 771 shigella strains from the American patients of the hospital. The amounts and the percentages of the subgroups are listed below together with the two other Ankara City Pediatric hospital results (see article). american community lived in Ankara for 15 years and shared many aspects which were important in shigella epidemiology like using city's tap water, shopping from the same green groceries to by fruits and vegetables so on. For shigella cases Ankara had seasonal alterations in July and August being the peak months. Americans, disease followed that course exactly. The big difference was being the local people of the city had those epidemics with the flexneri strains but Americans had them with the sonnei strains. To show the possible sources which could infect the community time to time and make sonnei predominant yielded negative result. All the patients stools were cultured. Sensitivity studies employing "plate disk diffusion" techniques were done. All patients treated accordingly. Stools checked for routine carriership exams. None become a chronic carrier. American installations had their shops, clubs, mess halls. The food handlers of these places had checked routinely by the preventive medicine office. None found infected. Only at 1963 the amount of flexneri isolations were higher than sonnei. All the remaining years sonnei were predominant. Antibiotic sensitivity studies showed no differences between subtypes. Except streptomycin and sulphamide strains stayed fairly sensitive to other antibiotics. Resistance factors contained maximum 6 markers. The little Americans community in Ankara consisted a unique and highly socioeconomic-wise developed group of the city. Many attempts to find the answer for the question is "who is infecting who" was always fruitless. That gives the impression as if the Americans were more sensitive to the shigella infections caused by sonnei strains for some reason. In another words Americans were more resistant to the infections other than sonnei.