Prevalence of microbial nosocomial infections in the resuscitation unit of the University Hospital of Annaba-Algeria

Nosocomial infections constitute a significant public health problem but are poorly controlled in our health structures, especially those associated with resuscitation care. The first objective of this study was to identify the different microbial strains present in different biological samples taken from patients staying in the resuscitation unit of the Annaba University Hospital Center. The second objective was to assess the antimicrobial sensitivity of isolated microbes from the patients’ samples, to determine the risk factors, the most incriminated microbial agents in nosocomial infections. During the study period from January 2013 to December 2016, we collected 1,151 biological samples from 1,938 patients admitted to Resuscitation Medical Service. The samples were subjected to different microbiological analyses. Our results showed that over 59% of the collected samples were microbiologically positive. The identified species include Candida albicans (115 cases) and Candida.sp (81 cases). The Gram-negative bacterial strains found in the samples included Acinetobacter baumannii (108 cases), Klebssiella pneumoniae (99 cases) Pseudomonas aeruginosa (79 cases), and Escherichia coli (73 cases). Gram positive bacteria included Staphylococcus aureus (94 cases) and Enterococcus faecalis (53 cases). The antibiogram analyses showed significant antibiotic resistance reaching 93.75% for ampicillin, but sensitivity to colistin reaching 81.81%. Moreover, the fungal strains are represented by the genus albicans, showing a significant resistance to antifungals, reaching 80% with miconazole. Conclusion. The nosocomial infections in the medical unit were caused by the candida genus and multi-resistant bacteria to various antibiotics and antifungals. The most important factor associated with these infections was the use of medical devices.