Incidence of Cronobacter sakazakii in Iraqi infants with neonatal sepsis Hassan Jabbar S1,*, Naser Wafaa Eskander2 1Ph. D in Microbiology, College of Medicine, Al-Nahrain University, Baghdad, Iraq 2MBCHB DCH, Al-Basrah Teaching Hospital, Basrah, Iraq *Corresponding author: Jabbar S. Hassan E-mail: jabbarsalman30@yahoo.com
Online published on 1 November, 2018. Abstract Background Neonatal sepsis is one of the main sources of morbidity and mortality in term and preterm infants. Bacterial infections are the causes of the vast majority of neonatal sepsis. Cronobacter sakazakii has been emerged as foodborne human pathogen and a causative agent for life-threatening bacterial infection in infants. Objective To investigate the incidence and risk factors associated with C. sakazakii infection in a sample of Iraqi neonates using molecular methods. Methods Venous blood was obtained from 100 neonates 1 days to 30 day-old who were admitted to AL-Imamain Al-Kadhumain Medical City, Baghdad/Iraq. After DNA was extracted from leukocytes, specific oligonucleotide primers for C. sakazakii were used in conventional PCR to amplify 282bp in internal transcribed spacer (ITS) between small and large subunit of ribosomal RNA gene. Association of different risk factors with the infection was determined by logistic regression test. Results Molecular methods for detection C. sakazakii revealed positive amplification in 16 samples (16%). Regarding prenatal risk factors results showed, six children (37.5%) positive for this bacterium had home delivery compared to only 15.47% of those who were negative. Among postnatal factors, only feeding method had a significant association with C. sakazakii infections where 68.75% of positive cases had received powdered infant formula (PIF) compared to 39.28% of negative cases who received such formula. Interestingly, 12 children (75%) who were positive for C. sakazakii have died compared with 18 (21.43%) among those who were negative for this bacterium. Top Keywords Cronobacter sakazakii, powdered infant formula (PIF), internal transcribed spacer (ITS), Postnatal Risk Factors, Prenatal Risk factor. Top |