Prevalence and Antibiogram Pattern of Bacteria from Wound Swabs

Abstract

Due to economic downturn which affected health budget, inadequate patient care and antibiotic resistance, there was a need to determine the bacterial agents in wound infections and their antibiogram in order to contribute to data which is currently scanty in JUTH Jos Nigeria. A total of 170 wound swabs were aseptically collected from patients in JUTH.  The swabs were cultured on to Blood agar, MacConkey agar, Chocolate agar and Sabouraud Dextrose agar (SAB)(Oxoid England) respectively according to the method previously described by Cheesbrough,(2000).Except for the Chocolate agar plates which were incubated in a candle jar, all other plates were  incubated aerobically. Culture plates were incubated in an incubator (Gallenkamp, UK) at 370C for 18 – 24 hours, while SAB plates were incubated at room temperature. Additionally, smears were made on clean glass slides and stained by Gram's stain as previously described by Cheesbrough, (2000). Colonies on culture plates were examined and identified according to methods previously described by Cowan and Steel (1993). A total of 8 bacterial species were identified with Staphylococcus aureus having the highest prevalence (49 or 28.2%). Other pathogens were: Klebsiella spp (20 or 12%); Proteus spp (16 or 9.4%) Pseudomonas aeruginosa (12 or 7.1%); Providencia spp (4 or 2.3%); Escherichia coli (4 or 2.3%); Morganella morganii (1 or 0.6%) and Streptococcus agalactiae (1 or 0.6%). Antibiotic sensitivity was carried out on these isolates on Muella- Hinton sensitivity agar according to methods previously described by Baker and Breach (1980). The antibiotic discs tested were ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, chloramphenicol, Ofloxacin, erythromycin, amoxicillin, ceftriazone and augmentin. Most pathogens were sensitive to first line antibiotics with gentamicin showing multisensitivity to Staphylococcus aureus, Proteus spp, Klebsiella spp, Streptococcus agalactiae. In addition, Staphylococcus aureus showed stronger sensitivity to gentamicin, erythromycin and chloramphenicol. It was suggested that antibiotic treatment for wound infections should not be administered without information on the antibiotic sensitivity of a given bacterium.