The rise in antimicrobial resistance: An obscure issue in COVID-19 treatment

Abstract

A saturated health care system with a lack of evidence-based antiviral medicine and ignorance of antimicrobial stewardship during pandemics has prompted clinicians to prescribe a broad-spectrum antibiotic more often. A prospective, cross-sectional study of COVIDinfected patients was conducted to gain insight into antibiotic prescribing practices and their impact on antimicrobial resistance. The antibiotic susceptibility test was performed using the disc diffusion method. 318 patients met the study’s inclusion criteria, with a mean age of 46 years and 55% (175) of them being males. Antibiotics were prescribed for 93.72% (209) of mild cases, 92.45% (49) of moderate cases, 96.15% (25) of severe cases, and 100% (16) of critical cases of COVID-19. A total of 95 samples were sent in for culture and antibiotic sensitivity testing, with 58.95% (56) confirming growth. The majority of the growth was found to contain E. coli (14). In 54.9% of cases, antibiotics with less than 50% sensitivity to curing bacterial infection were detected. In the study, we found that antibiotics were being used unnecessarily in excessive quantities and that more than half of the antibiotics were less sensitive to isolated bacteria.