Patients and clinical samples
The present study was conducted in the framework of a larger project that was investigating the aetiologies, diagnoses, and treatment of febrile children in the Health district of Nanoro. For the present study, any child under-5 years of age attending one of the four primary healthcare facilities or the referral hospital of the Health district of Nanoro with documented fever (axillary temperature > 37.5°C) was invited to participate in the study. Cases were managed by health facility or referral hospital staff according to the Burkinabe national protocol of diseases management based on the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) (20). Furthermore, clinical specimens (blood, stool and urine) were collected at enrolment for microbiological analyses and antibiotic susceptibility testing, at the laboratory of Microbiology of the Clinical Research Unit of Nanoro (CRUN). In case the children could not produce a urine or stool sample at the time of enrolment, sterile containers were provided to the legal guardian to collect these samples at home and return them as soon as possible to the health facility within 48 hours after inclusion.
Written informed consent was obtained from parents or legal guardians before any data and specimen collection. The study protocol was reviewed and approved by the National Ethical Committee for Health Research, Burkina Faso (Deliberation No. 2014-11-130).
Laboratory procedures
Sample collection and bacterial species identification
The microbiology procedures used in this study have been already described in detail elsewhere (21). Briefly, from each child, 1-3 mL of venous blood was collected into a paediatric blood culture bottle (BD BACTEC Peds PlusTM/F culture vials, Becton Dickinson and Company, Sparks, Maryland, USA) at enrolment. These bottles were incubated at 35°C ± 2°C in an automated incubator BACTEC 9050 (Becton Dickinson and Company, Sparks, Maryland, USA) for a maximum of 5 days as recommended by the manufacturer. Positive bottles were Gram stained and further sub-cultured on 5% fresh sheep blood agar (SBA), chocolate agar with PolyViteX (PVX) or IsoVitaleX (IVX), and Gram-negative selective agar (Eosin Methylene Blue (EMB) agar or Mac Conkey agar) and incubated at 35°C ± 2°C for 18-24 hours. The pathogens present in positive blood cultures were identified by standard microbiological methods (22-24). In addition, the Analytical Profile Index (API; bioMerieux Marcy-L’Etoile, France) 20E system was used for biochemical identification. Identified Salmonella strains were further serotyped using RemelTM agglutinating sera (Thermo ScientificTM, United Kingdom) to detect Salmonella O and H antigens (25).
Fresh stool samples collected in sterile containers were inoculated in Salmonella enrichment broth (Sodium Selenite broth), on Hektoen and EMB (only used for children under 2 years) agars and incubated at 35°C ± 2°C for 18-24 hours. After 4-6 hours, the sodium selenite broth was sub-cultured on Salmonella-Shigella (SS) agar and incubated at 35°C ± 2°C for 18-24 hours. Suspect colonies sought for were Salmonella species, Shigella species, and enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC), only for children under 2 years). Suspect colonies were further identified according to standard microbiological methods. Identified suspected strains were also serotyped by slide agglutination (Bio-Rad antisera, Marnes-la-Coquette, France).
Midstream urine samples were collected in sterile containers and screened with a urine dipstick test (Urocolor, Standard Diagnostics Inc, Suwan, South Korea). If leucocytes and nitrite were present (indicating a probable urinary infection), the urine samples were plated on appropriate agar (cysteine-lactose-electrolyte-deficient [CLED] and EMB agars) and incubated for 18-24 hours at 35°C ± 2°C. A pure bacterial growth of ³105 colonies forming units (CFU)/mL was considered as significant bacteriuria according to the Stamm and Kass recommendation (26).
Antimicrobial susceptibility testing
Antimicrobial susceptibility testing of bacterial isolates was done using the standard disc diffusion procedure (Kirby-Bauer) and the Minimal Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) as per the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines (27, 28). Antibiotic susceptibility was determined for non-typhoidalSalmonella (NTS), typhoidal Salmonella (TS), E. coli, Shigella flexeneri, Shigella dysenteriae, Enterobacter agglomerans, Haemophilus Influenza b, Neisseria meningitidis, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Staphylococcus aureus. Antibiotic susceptibility testing of isolated EPEC was not done, because according to general practice cares as well as local standard practice like applied in Burkina Faso, gastroenteritis caused by these bacteria is not treated with antibiotics (18, 29).
A suspension of each bacterial isolate to be tested was prepared to the turbidity of 0.5 McFarland standard (measured by BD PhoenixSpec, Nephelometer Becton Dickinson and Company, Sparks, Maryland, USA). The 0.5 McFarland standard bacterial suspension was subsequently plated out on appropriate agar (plate of 100 mm diameter) depending on the bacterial species studied. A maximum of 6 antibiotic discs and a maximum of 3 plastic E-test strips were deposited per plate. The inoculate agars with antibiotic discs or E-tests were incubated for 16-18 hours at 35°C ± 2°C according to the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines (27, 28). The diameter of the inhibition zone was measured and recorded in millimetres for each disc and in microgram per millilitre (mg/mL) for each E-test. The results of antibiotic susceptibility testing were interpreted according to the criteria of the CLSI (27, 28). The antibiotic discs (BD Seni-DiscTM, Becton Dickinson and Company, B.V., Vianen, The Netherlands) used for antibiotic susceptibility testing as well as the minimal inhibition concentration (MIC; E-tests; Liofilchem S.r.l, Roseto degli Abruzzi(TE), Italy) are reported in table 1.
Determination of Extended Spectrum beta-lactamase producers
The extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) producing Enterobacteriaceae were determined by using both ceftazidime (CAZ) (30µg) and cefotaxime (CTX) (30µg) discs, alone or in combination with clavulanate (C) (10 µg) discs, as described in CLSI (27, 28). A bacteria strain was considered as potential ESBL-producer, when the inhibition zone diameters were ≤25mm for ceftriaxone (CRO) disc, ≤22mm for CAZ disc, and ≤27mm for CTX disc (27, 28). An Enterobacteriaceae phenotype is indisputably considered to be an ESBL producing phenotype bacterium if the difference between the inhibition zone diameter for either antibiotic tested in combination (CAZ + C) or (CTX + C) and the inhibition zone diameter of the corresponding antibiotic tested alone (CAZ or CTX) is ≥ 5 mm (27, 28). S. aureus species were considered as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains when the inhibition zone diameter of cefoxitin disc (FOX; 30 𝜇g) on Mueller Hinton (MH) agar plate is ≤21 mm after 16–18 hours of incubation, according to CLSI guidelines (27, 28).
An isolate was considered to be multi-resistant when it is resistant to at least one antibiotic agent in each of all three antibiotic categories used for therapy or prophylaxis based on Burkina Faso national treatment guidelines.
Quality control
Standard bacteriological procedures were performed in accordance with standard operating procedures (SOPs) of the CRUN microbiology department, to ensure the conformity of microbiology laboratory tests. Monthly internal quality controls are performed and the CRUN laboratory is subjected to external quality control organised by the World Health Organization (WHO) and National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) according to a standard auditing protocol. American Type Culture Collection (ATCC ®) standard reference strains Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Salmonella typhimurium ATCC® 14028TM, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC® 25923TM, Staphylococcus epidermidis ATCC® 14990TM, Streptococcus pyogenes ATCC® 19615TM, Enterococcus faecalis ATCC® 29212TM, and Streptococcus pneumonia ATCC® 49619TM were used for internal quality control.
Data analysis
The inhibition diameters for each antibiotic tested for each investigated bacterium were recorded using Excel 2016. These data were double entered by 2 independent technicians and subsequently validated by the lab-manager. Data analysis was performed using STATA version 13 software. For the interpretation of the resistant rate of strains identified in the present study, the following classification was used: low (resistance rate <20%), moderate (resistance from 20 to 50%), high (resistance rate from 50 to 75%), alarming (resistance rate from 75 to 100%) for the antibiotics tested (30, 31).