PATHOGENIC BACTERIAL ISOLATES FROM DIABETIC FOOT INFECTIONS PATIENTS AND THEIR SUSCEPTIBILITY TO ANTIBIOTICS IN SELECTED PUBLIC HOSPITALS, SANA’A, YEMEN

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a group of blood genetic disorders resulting in an abnormality in the Diabetic foot infections remain a major public health problem and cause socioeconomic burdens to affected people. Clinically infected foot ulcers require treatment guided by appropriate cultures and antimicrobial susceptibility testing. This study aimed to assess the bacterial profile and antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of isolates from diabetic foot infections in selected public hospitals, Sana'a, Yemen. A cross-sectional study was conducted from June 2021 to July 2022 at Al-Gomhori teaching hospital, Kuwait teaching hospital, and AlThawrah public hospital in Sana'a, the capital city of Yemen. The study included 135 adult patients with infected diabetic foot ulcers. Convenient sampling was employed. Wound aspirates from the foot ulcers were collected aseptically and inoculated into Blood, MacConkey, Chocolate and Mannitol salt Agar. The antimicrobial susceptibility patterns were conducted by disk diffusion method. The data was analyzed with SPSS v.20 for windows. The results revealed that; One hundred ninety bacterial isolates were identified among 135 patients. Among them, 62.96% had mono-bacterial infection while 37.04% had mixed bacterial infections. Gram negative aerobic bacterial infections were more accounting cases 63.7% than, Gram positive aerobic bacteria 36.3%. The most commonly isolated bacteria were S. aureus 26.3%, followed by Klebsiella spp 22.1% and Proteus spp 11.1%. In general, 73.68% of the isolates developed multidrug resistance to at least one drug in three different classes of antibiotics. Meropinem and amikacin appeared to be the best antibiotics for therapy against Gram negative and cefoxitin and vancomycin against Gram positive organisms.