Resistance Profile of Bacteria Isolatedgrom Hospital Sources to Antibioticsand Biocides

There have been reports of concomitant resistance to biocides and antibiotics particularly in clinical bacteria. The study therefore investigated the resistance profile of clinical bacterial iso-lates to antibiotics and biocides employed in the sanitation of the hospital wards. A total of 484 clinical bacterial isolates comprising Citrobacter freundii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa., Klebsiella oxycota, Staphylococcus aureus, coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS), Xanthomonas maltro-phila, Enterobacter spp, Escherichia coli, Proteus mirabilis and Pseudomonas spp were isolated from the patients� stools, urine, High vaginal swab, hand swab of medical personnel and inani-mate objects within the hospital wards. Resistance demonstrated by isolates to 27 different anti-biotics and seven biocides using standard methods was examined. All the isolates tested were resistant to between one and 24 different antibiotics in varying proportions. Overall, resistance to antibiotics ranged from 0.7 to 100% among Gram negative bacteria and 0.98 to 100% among Gram positive bacteria. The organisms developed resistance to the antibiotics in varying propor-tion. In all cases, resistance to antibiotics was generally high among the Gram negative bacteria particularly, Xanthomonas maltrophila, Enterobacter spp and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Resis-tance was highest to cefazolin among the cephalosporin antibiotics and ciprofloxacin among the flouroquinolone antibiotic, while it was highest to penicillin and nitrofurantoin among other antibiotics. All the isolates were susceptible to the biocides tested except Enterobacter spp., Xan-thomonas spp., and Pseudomonas aeruginosa that were resistant only to chlorhexidine diglu-conate at a concentration of 0.05�g/ml. Plasmid analysis of the chlorhexidine-resistant isolates showed the absence of plasmid link. This indicated that the resistance was not plasmid-mediated. In the study, resistance among the organisms to antibiotics was greater than to biocides, which may be due to increase in the use of antibiotics than biocides.