Resistance Profiles of Bacteria Isolated from Wastewater in the State Specialist Hospital Maiduguri

Antibiotics being an effective antibacterial did not really last long as expected. This is because as soon as they were discovered, bacteria started developing resistance against it. Even though studies have shown that resistance genes existed long before the discovery of antibiotics, the reason why we have increased growth in antibiotics resistance is as a result of misuse and overuse of the agents in human and agricultural settings. The aim of this study is to identify the common bacterial species in wastewater and to determine their resistance pattern to regularly/commonly used antibiotics.  Samples were collected from the general wastewater channel of the state specialist hospital, Maiduguri. The bacterial isolates identified were Enterobacter spp, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas spp, Proteus spp, Klebsiella spp, Salmonella spp, Bacillus spp, Coagulase -ve Staphylococcus and other Coliform spp. The antibiotics susceptibility of the bacterial isolates was assayed using the disc diffusion method; OPTUDISCs. The level of sensitivity was highest with   Ofloxacin and Levofloxacin having 78.5% and 75%, while resistance was highest with Cloxacillin, Augumentin, Ampicillin and Tetracycline with 96.4%, 89.2, 88.9 and 85.1% respectively. This shows that except for Levofloxacin, all isolates have already been exposed to antibiotics, which resulted in them developing multi resistance. As a result of this multi resistance, there is need to develop other alternative therapy that will be able to tackle antibiotics resistance and surveillance on trends in antibiotic resistance.