Antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of bacterial isolates from wound infections at all Africa leprosy, tuberculosis and rehabilitation training center, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Background: Antimicrobial resistance occurs when bacteria change in some way that reduces or eliminates the effectiveness of drugs, chemicals or other agents designed to cure or prevent the infection.

Objective: To isolate etiology of wound infections and determine their antimicrobial susceptibility pattern.

Results: In this study 171 bacterial isolates were recovered from 188 specimens showing an isolation rate of 86.2%. The predominant bacteria isolated from the infected wounds were Staphylococcus aureus 96 (51.1%) followed by Klebsiella pneumonia 26 (15.2%), Escherichia coli 23 (13.4%). Out of 162 positive samples, 9 (5.5%) were mixed infections. Staphylococcus aureus exhibited highest sensitivity against Clindamycin (95.8%), Gentamycin (94.8%), Chloramphenicol (92.7%), Ciprofloxacin (89.6%) and Cotrimoxazole (84%). Gram-negative isolates, E. coli, P. vulgaris, P. mirabilis, P. aeruginosa and Citrobacter showed the highest sensitivity against Amikacin (100%). E. coli showed high resistance for Ampicillin (95.7%) and Augmentin (91.3%) whereas P. vulgaris showed 100% resistance for Ampicillin and 90.9% for Tetracycline.

Conclusion: High culture positivity rate of wound infections reported in the present study initiates many similar studies to be conducted on wound infection in the country. High level of drug resistance to the commonly prescribed drugs dictates a search for better choices.