In a follow-up to the report on antibiotic-resistant Shigella infections in the United States one week ago, health officials in Ontario, Canada say Cipro and Septra resistant Shigella is also being reported in the province.
In an interview with CBC News, Dr. Vanessa Allen, chief of medical microbiology for Public Health Ontario said, “We are aware of ongoing issues with resistant enteric bacteria, and in particular shigella. We have considerable cases of Shigella sonnei in Ontario but much lower than the U.S. data.”
Specifically, Allen says for the five year period from 2010-2015, 14 per cent of 663 cases in Ontario were ciprofloxacin resistant and many were Septra resistant.
Last week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported the bacterium was resistant to ciprofloxacin nearly 90 percent of the time in clusters of disease in several states.
Research by the CDC found that the drug-resistant illness was being repeatedly introduced as ill travelers returned and was then infecting other people in a series of outbreaks around the country.
