An Outbreak of Hemoytic Uremic Syndrome Associated with Antibiotic Treatment of Hospital Inpatients for Dysentery

摘要

Shiga toxin (ST) from Shigella dysenteriae type 1 is accepted as a cause of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS); however, the reasons why HUS develops in only some infected patients are not clear (1). The possibility that antibiotic therapy is associated with the development of HUS has been explored for S. dysenteriae type 1 and for Escherichia coli O157:H7 (2–4). In May 1993, during an outbreak of S. dysenteriae type 1 in Gizan, Saudi Arabia, an association between antibiotic treatment and HUS was also observed (5). The strain of S. dysenteriae type 1 was resistant to ampicillin, tetracycline, chloramphenicol, and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) and sensitive to nalidixic acid. We report here some of our preliminary observations for a concurrent outbreak.