Multi-antibiotics-resistance plasmid profile of enteric pathogens in pediatric patients from Nigeria

Abstract

A total of 938 faecal samples of diarrheal stool of pediatric patients attending Madonna University Teaching Hospital (MUTH) from June 2003 to June 2004 were examined. 218 of eight different
bacterial strains namely Escherichia coli 90(41.3%), Shigella dysenteriae 38(17.4%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa 20(9.2%), Salmonella typhi 18(8.3%), Staphylococcus aureus 7(3.2%), Proteus mirabilis 5(2.3%), Enterococcus faecalis 25(11.5%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae 15(6.9%) were isolated. The susceptibility pattern of the isolates to the various antibiotics varied with Proteus mirabilis and
Klebsiella pneumoniae 100% sensitive to peflacine and Enterococcus faecalis 100% sensitive to ciprofloxacin and augmentin. Most of the isolates were least sensitive to cotrimoxazole, ampicillin, erythromycin gentamicin, streptomycin and chloramphenicol. The resistance plasmids to the various isolates were very diverse and distributive among the isolates. They were also highly transferable with a high frequency range of 2x10-2 to 6x10-4. Some of the isolates had plasmids bands that ranged from 0.55kbp to 1.14kbp. This indicates that plasmids allow the movement of genetic materials,
including antimicrobial resistance genes between bacterial species and strains.