This article collects the work of the doctoral thesis of Sana Alibí, from Sousse (Tunisia), co-directed by Jesús Navas Méndez, professor of the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Cantabria and researcher of the Microbiology and Infectious Diseases group of IDIVAL, and Jalel Boukadida, head of the Microbiology service of the Sousse hospital.
The appearance of the bacterium Corynebacterium striatum as an emerging pathogen in the aforementioned hospital and in the community is described, presenting multi-resistance, in particular to antibiotics widely used in clinical practice (beta-lactams, quinolones and macrolides). The conclusions of this work should be considered by the doctors at the time of establishing the treatment of infections by this pathogen. Although this type of bacteria continues to be sensitive to vancomycin, hospitals like Sousse do not have the economic resources to dispense this compound, resorting to more affordable ones such as some beta-lactams (amoxicillin). Resistance genes to amoxicillin (and other antibiotics) were found in a large part of the strains of C. striatum isolated in the Sousse hospital in recent years. In each case of infection by this pathogen, a study of the resistance profile must be made to establish the appropriate treatment.
This work was carried out in the faculty of Medicine and in the Microbiology service of Valdecilla during two stays of Sana Alibí (2014 and 2015), for which it received funding from the University of Sousse and from the University of Cantabria itself.
Scientific Reports is a multidisciplinary journal published in the open access modality by the Nature publishing group. The bibliometric records have certified that this article is among the 100 most read of the more than 2000 Microbiology articles published by this magazine in 2017, a circumstance that was communicated in a congratulatory message from the editor of the magazine to Jesús Navas, in quality of correspondence author and responsible for the publication of this work.
“Occurrence of Corynebacterium striatum as an emerging antibiotic-resistant nosocomial pathogen in a Tunisian hospital”. Sana Alibí, Asma Ferjani, Jalel Boukadida, María Eliecer Cano, Marta Fernández-Martínez, Luis Martínez-Martínez, Jesús Navas. 2017. Scientific Reports 7:9704/ DOI:10.1038/s41598-017-10081-y
