Clinical Microbiology: Open Access

A look back to the situation of Ecuador: Is Salmonella spp. still a big problem?

3^rd International Conference on Clinical Microbiology & Microbial Genomics

September 24-26, 2014 Valencia Convention Centre, Spain

Ariel Avalos, Maria Jose Alulema and Monica Cartelle Gestal

YRF: Clin Microbial

Abstract:

Salmonella is a major cause of foodborne illness throughout the world. The bacteria are generally transmitted to humans through consumption of contaminated food. Usually the symptoms appear early after infection and people generally recover without treatment, but very young people or elderly may get septicemia and can be mortal. When Salmonella typhimurium enter epithelial cells lining the intestine they cause host cell ruffling which temporarily damages the microvilli on the surface of the cell. This causes a rush of white blood cells into the mucosa. In this work we want to study the evolution of food transmitted diseases in Ecuador for the last 20 years. We want to see if the new policies in food control are decreasing the number of cases of Salmonella spp. Salmonella spp. and Salmonella tiphymurum are decreasing specially since 2001. The big number of cases of this year it can be explained by the phenomena ?La Nina? that happened in 2000 and lasted till in 2001 causing big floods in all the country. Since then the rate has been decreasing probably due to the policy of food safety implemented in 1996 and the beginning of the vaccination against Typhoid. The outbreaks affected more the Galapagos Islands (1996 and 2002). Amazonia suffers as well the high rates of Salmonella spp. followed by coast (increasing in winter) and finally the Andes (safest place).

Biography :

Ariel Avalos is a student of fifth semester of Medicine. She is part of the scientific committee of the Faculty of Public Health and the Association of the students of Medicine of Latin America.