Human Campylobacter infections in Italy

What is it about?

Campylobacteriosis is recognized as an emerging infection in Europe. This article provides a nationwide microbiological epidemiology of Campylobacter infections in Italy. Data from 19 hospitals in 13 Italian regions (for a total of more than 5000 isolates).

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Photo by Thomas Iversen on Unsplash

Photo by Thomas Iversen on Unsplash

Why is it important?

In total, 5419 isolations of Campylobacter spp. were performed. The most common species were C. jejuni (83.7%), followed by C. coli (13.5%) and C. fetus (0.6%). The mean age of patients was 34 years and 57% were males. Outpatients accounted for 54% of the cases detected. Campylobacter were isolated from faeces in 97.3% of cases and in 2.7% from blood. C. fetus was mostly isolated from blood (88.2% of cases). Resistance to ciprofloxacin and tetracyclines was 75.5% and 54.8%, respectively; resistance to erythromycin was 4.8%; clarithromycin 2% and azithromycin 2%. 50% of C. jejuni and C. coli were resistant to ≥ 2 antibiotics. Over the study period, resistance to ciprofloxacin and tetracyclines significantly decreased (p < 0.005), while resistance to macrolides remained stable.