The Institut Pasteur is launching a national alert concerning the multiplication of cases of shigellosis in France. A highly contagious disease with significant mortality, the strains of which are highly resistant to antibiotics.
Abdominal pain, vomiting, bloody diarrhea, fever… These are all symptoms that may indicate contamination by the bacteria responsible for shigellosis or bacillary dysentery. The Shigella sonnei bacterium belongs to the same family as salmonella or E.Coli and is transmitted by the faecal-oral route, generally following the contamination of water or food by faeces. Just out of the triple epidemic that raged in France this winter, shigellosis worries doctors. She is particularly contagious because it takes very little bacteria to trigger the infection, so it is already responsible for many epidemics around the world.
Generally, shigellosis heals spontaneously in a few days, but for the Institut Pasteur, it could become a major health problem on French territory. More and more infectious foci have been discovered in France in recent years, even though the disease is generally more present in developing countries and in more tropical climates. A real risk in view of its mortality. The Institute emphasizes in its press release that each year, shigellosis kills about 200,000 people worldwide. 65,000 children are said to have died after contracting it in less than 5 years.
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A very worrying resistance to antibiotics
The rise in cases is all the more worrying as strains of the bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics. According to figures put forward by the Institut Pasteur, 22.3% of all strains of Shigella sonnei would be highly resistant to the three major classes of antibiotics first line in the treatment of the disease (fluoroquinolones, azithromycins and cephalosporins).
In the most worrying cases, the only solution is often to use more aggressive antibiotics and administered intravenously under medical supervision, making monitoring more complex in the event of the start of an epidemic. The increase in resistant strains around the world has already led the WHO to request its classification among the 12 “priority pathogens.” Shigellosis is therefore at the top of the list for the search for new treatments, whether vaccines or antibiotics.