Isolation of bacteria associated with diarrhoea among children attending some hospitals in Kano metropolis, Kano state, Nigeria

Abstract

Bacteriological investigations of Diarrhoeal diseases were carried out among 300 children who were between the ages of 0 – 24 months using stool samples from five different hospitals in the metropolitan Kano. The organisms were isolated and identified using cultural, serological biochemical test. Sensitivity testing of the isolates to some antimicrobial agents was carried out. Out of those number only a total of 122(40.7%) of children were found to have Diarrhoea associated with bacteria in which 34(27.9%) and 88(72.1%) were from breast-fed and bottle-fed children respectively. The Bacteria isolated were Escherichia coli which were the most predominant, followed by Salmonella species and then Shigella species. As at the time of the study, there was significance difference between breast-fed and bottle-fed in the incidence at P> 0.05. Among the antimicrobials used cotrimoxazole was found to be more effective than the others. Also, most of the children tested were found to have a common illness of diarrhoea followed by dysentery, abdominal pain and fever/vomiting.