The bacteria that cause typhoid fever have grown “increasingly antimicrobial-resistant” and have spread to several countries over the past 30 years, according to a study published in The Lancet Microbe journal on June 21.
Typhoid fever is a life-threatening infection caused by salmonella typhi (S. typhi), which typically spreads through contaminated food or water.
While there has been a declining trend of multidrug-resistant typhoid in South Asia, researchers have discovered that strains resistant to fluoroquinolone and quinolone—both of which are important antibiotics—have risen and spread widely.
“We identified numerous international and intercontinental transfers of S Typhi over the past 30 years, with the majority associated with antimicrobial resistance,” they stated in the Lancet Microbe study….