Antimicrobial Susceptibility Profile of Escherichia coli Isolated from the Urine of Asymptomatic Students in a University in South-Western Nigeria

Abstract

Asymptomatic bacteriuria is a common occurrence among healthy students, with a tendency to develop into
symptomatic urinary tract infections (UTIs). This study was carried out to investigate the occurrence and
antimicrobial susceptibility profile of Escherichia coli from the urine of asymptomatic students. A total of 180 midstream
urine samples were collected from apparently healthy students, whose consents were sought. E. coli was
isolated and tested for their susceptibility to commonly used antimicrobial agents using the disk diffusion protocol.
Result analysis was done using one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the help of SPSS and level of
significance taken at p<0.05. The isolates showed resistance against 90% of the antibiotics used in this study with
93.3% of the isolates resistant to cefuroxime and 35 % resistant to nitrofurantoin. Multidrug resistance (MDR) was
also observed where the isolates showed resistance to at least three classes of the antimicrobial agents used in this
study. A multiple antibiotic resistance index greater than 0.2 was observed in over 80 % of the isolates. This study
showed a rare occurrence in which almost all the Escherichia coli isolates showed resistance to over 90% of the
antibiotics used in this study with the exception of nitrofurantoin which seems to be the most effective antibiotics
against all the isolates. This situation portends grave danger to public health; hence, the need for high level
surveillance and monitoring of the use of antibiotics in therapy as well as the molecular identification of the
prevalent resistant strains.