Isolation and Identification of Multi-Drug Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii from a tertiary health care centre of Bangladesh

Acinetobacter baumannii has emerged over the last decade as a significant opportunistic pathogen and primarily associated with hospital-acquired infections. Increasing multidrug resistance pattern of A. baumannii makes it among the most difficult antimicrobial-resistant Gram-negative bacilli to control and treat. The aim of this study was to isolate and identify A. baumannii from clinical samples and to determine their antimicrobial resistance pattern to commonly prescribed drugs to find out Multi-Drug Resistant A. baumannii (MDRAB). Nine different clinical samples were collected from patients admitted to Comilla Medical College Hospital (CoMCH). A. baumannii were isolated and identified based on their growth, physiological, and biochemical characteristics. Their antibiograms were studied through standard disk diffusion method, and antibiotic susceptibility patterns were interpreted. Meropenem, Cephalexin, Ampicillin, Gentamycin, Tetracycline, and Chloramphenicol were used to evaluate the sensitivity of the isolates. Three A. baumannii isolates were recovered from different clinical samples. Though the isolates showed similar growth and physiological characteristics along with similar biochemical profiles, they differ considerably in their sensitivity against several antibiotics. With an exception to tetracycline, A. baumannii W2 found to exhibit remarkable resistance against all the test antibiotics including meropenem. On the other hand, both A. baumannii C2 and A. baumannii C3 showed similar resistance pattern. Both were also MDRAB showing resistance to cephalexin, ampicillin, and tetracycline. The recovery of MDRAB including meropenem-resistant A. baumannii from different clinical specimens, and their antibiotic resistance pattern hint emergence of a formidable pathogen of nosocomial origin. The findings of the study urge revision and up-gradation of current patient maintenance practices in health care providing centres of our country to limit the prevalence of antibiotic resistant A. baumannii.