Multi-Drug Resistance Pattern of Staphylococcus aureus from Pediatric ward, General Hospital, Ikot-Ekpaw, Mkpat Enin LGA, Akwa-Ibom State, Nigeria

Abstract

The evaluation of the Multi-drug resistance pattern of Staphylococcus aureus from a pediatric ward, in AkwaIbom State was conducted using standard clinical microbiological procedures. Of the 100 samples from skin, wound, ear, throat and nose swabs, 28 isolates were confirmed as S. aureus and were subjected to a range of selected commercially available antibiotics like: amoxicillin, ampiclox, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, gentamicin, levofloxacin, norfloxacin, rifampicin and streptomycin, to evaluate their susceptibilities. The wound swabs gave the highest isolate percentage yield (32%) followed by skin swabs (29%). While susceptibility results showed that amoxicillin and ampiclox were more resisted by the isolates, while ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin and norfloxacin were more effective against the isolates. The MAR indices showed that 85.7% of the isolates had confirmed multi-drug resistance status, with 60.7% of the isolates having resistance for between four or more the tested antimicrobials. MAR indices revealed that 96.4% of the isolates had 0.3, indicating that the resistance resulted from isolates that adapted to the tested drugs due to some form of abuse. Restricted use of these drugs would help curtail the high resistance currently experienced amongst microorganisms.