Antibiotic susceptibility trend estimation for India based on 2018 to 2021 data from GEARS program

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) continues to be a major public threat due to dwindling supplies of effective antibiotics due to its excessive usage in humans and food producing animals. The objective of our study was to identify and predict future trends in multi-drug resistance amongst enterobacteriaceae and non-enterobacteriaceae family in India for four common broad-spectrum antibiotics. We focussed on four broad spectrum antibiotics levofloxacin, gentamicin, cefepime, and ceftazidime and classified the GEARS program study dataset into sensitive (S), intermediate(I) and resistant (R) isolates based on CLSI breakpoints . Levofloxacin (98.3%) was found to be the most susceptible broad spectrum antibiotic for treatment of non-enterobacteriaceae while it was relatively resistant (56.5%) for enterobacteriaceae treatment. As levofloxacin are among ICMR list of alert antimicrobial agents,hospitals and clinicans can exercise greater care before prescribing them.