Antimicrobial Susceptibility Profile of Escherichia coli Isolated from the Urine of Asymptomatic Students in a University in South-Western Nigeria

Asymptomatic bacteriuria is a common occurrence among healthy students, with a tendency to develop intosymptomatic urinary tract infections (UTIs). This study was carried out to investigate the occurrence andantimicrobial susceptibility profile of Escherichia coli from the urine of asymptomatic students. A total of 180 midstreamurine samples were collected from apparently healthy students, whose consents were sought. E. coli wasisolated and tested for their susceptibility to commonly used antimicrobial agents using the disk diffusion protocol.Result analysis was done using one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the help of SPSS and level ofsignificance taken at p<0.05. The isolates showed resistance against 90% of the antibiotics used in this study with93.3% of the isolates resistant to cefuroxime and 35 % resistant to nitrofurantoin. Multidrug resistance (MDR) wasalso observed where the isolates showed resistance to at least three classes of the antimicrobial agents used in thisstudy. A multiple antibiotic resistance index greater than 0.2 was observed in over 80 % of the isolates. This studyshowed a rare occurrence in which almost all the Escherichia coli isolates showed resistance to over 90% of theantibiotics used in this study with the exception of nitrofurantoin which seems to be the most effective antibioticsagainst all the isolates. This situation portends grave danger to public health; hence, the need for high levelsurveillance and monitoring of the use of antibiotics in therapy as well as the molecular identification of theprevalent resistant strains.