Journal of New Discovery in Microbiology

Diarrhea is a common cause of illness and death among children in developing countries including Nigeria. The study aimed to isolate and characterize the enteric bacteria associated with acute diarrhea among children in Kano, Northern Nigeria. This study involved 250 patients attending 3 major health centres within Kano State (Murtala Muhammad Specialist Hospital (MMSH), Danbatta General Hospital and Wudil General Hospital) for treatment of diarrhea. Fecal samples from the patients were streaked onto the surface of MacConkey agar and Salmonella-Shigella agar plates and incubated aerobically at 37°C for 24 hours. After incubation, bacterial growth was observed for colony appearance and morphology. Each colony was re-inoculated into freshly prepared agar plates until a pure colony was obtained. For identification, each pure colony was Gram stained and subjected to further biochemical tests such as indole, methyl-red, Voges Proskauer, citrate utilization and motility test. A total of 523 bacteria were isolated comprising 8 genera. They include E. coli, Salmonella spp, Shigella spp, Klebsiella spp, Proteus spp, Enterobacter spp, Citrobacter spp and Serratia spp. Highest number of isolates was recovered from patients aged 1 – 2 years with 174 bacterial isolates accounting for 32%, followed by patients less than a year with 141 bacterial isolates (27%). Patients aged 4 – 5 years had the least number of isolates (50) which accounted for 9.6% of the total isolates. The result further showed that E. coli has the highest occurrence of 193 appearances (36.9%), Salmonella spp had occurrence of 92 (17.6%) while Shigella spp had occurrences of 63 (12%). The occurrences of Citrobacter spp and Serratia spp in this study were 28 (5.4%) and 21 (4%) respectively. It is concluded that enteric bacteria are one of the major causative agents of diarrhea among children.