BACTERIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF BLOOD CULTURE ISOLATES WITH THEIR ANTIBIOGRAM FROM A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Introduction: Bloodstream infections (BSI) are a serious cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Emerging antimicrobial drug resistance among bacterial pathogens causing BSI can limit therapeutic options and complicate patient management. Objective: To encourage the prudent use of appropriate antibiotics in our tertiary care Hospital, we studied the prevalence and antibiogram patterns of blood culture isolates from March 2013 to February 2014.  Results: Of 829 blood cultures examined, 116 (13.9 %) were positive for bacterial growth. The frequency of Gram-positive bacteria isolated was 52.5% (61 of 829) and that for Gram-negatives was 47.4% (55 of 829). The most common gram-positive organism isolated was Staphylococcus aureus (28.5%), followed by CoNS (13.3%) and Enterococcus spp. (5.7%). Staphylococcus aureus, had exhibited least resistance to tetracycline, doxycycline, vancomycin, daptomycin, and linezolid. The rates of methicillin (oxacillin) resistance in Staphylococcus aureus were 32%. Among the Gram-negative isolates, the predominant isolates were Acinetobacter and Salmonella typhi (36.3%) followed by Escherichia coli (10.9%), Klebsiella species (9%) and Pseudomonas species (7.27%). ESBL and MBL production was seen in 25 (45.5%) and 13 (23.6%) isolates, respectively. Conclusions: Our findings underscore the need to monitor blood culture isolates and their antimicrobial resistance patterns to observe resistance trends that would influence appropriate empiric treatment and infection control strategies for bactaeremic cases