Antibiotic susceptibility of Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae isolated from hospital urine samples

Abstract

Two hundred freshly voided midstream specimens of urine collected from the Ahmadu Bello University Sick Bay (Samaru Main Campus (were processed for bacterial contaminations. Fifty samples (25%) were culture positive for urinary tract pathogens including: Escherichia coli [40%], Klebsiella pneumoniae (36%), Staphylococcus aureus (18%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (6%). Antibiotic susceptibility studies on the dominant isolates known to be commonly implicated in urinary tract infections- showed that most of the E. coli were resistant to more than four antibiotics. Resistances were more pronounced with nalidixic acid [80%], ceftazidime (80%), nitrofurantoin (73.3%) and cotrimoxazole [100%]. On the other hand K. pneumoniae isolates showed resistances to cotrimoxazole (100%), ceftazidime (86.7%), nalidixic acid (60%) and nitrofurantoin (55.3%). Both isolates were uniformly susceptible to amikacin and imipenem (100% susceptibility) respectively. The urine bacterial isolates were significantly susceptible to antibiotics commonly used in the treatment of urinary tract infections, however, costly and less frequently prescribed antibiotics were much more effective and should be reserved for life threatening cases.


IJONAS Vol. 3 (1) 2007: pp. 49-52