Objective: To investigate the incidence of campylobacter jejuni (CJ) infection and the drug resistance of CJ in children with diarrhea in Guangzhou.
Methods: The fecal samples of 3,351 children with diarrhea between July 2005 and June 2008 were collected for CJ culture. The species of CJ strains were identified by Lior methods. The drug susceptibility tests were performed by the Kirby-Bauer method.
Results: Two hundred and sixty-seven CJ strains (8.0%) were isolated from 3,351 samples. The children at age of 1 month to 1 year were susceptible to CJ, accounting for 91.0%. A higher incidence of CJ infection (76.8%) was found in summer and autumn. The CJ strains were susceptible to imipenem, amikacin, cefoperazone/sulbactam, chloramphenicol, macrolides and lincomycins. Parts of CJ strains (20%-40%) were resistant to ampicillin, quinolones and ambramycin. All CJ strains were resistant to sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim and cefditoren. Two hundred and one strains (75.3%) were CJ biotype I.
Conclusions: CJ is an important pathogen of diarrhea in children from Guangzhou. CJ is resistant to some antibiotics used often in clinical practice, and so it is thus important to use antibiotics based on the results of drug susceptibility tests in children with CJ infection.