Bacterial resistance of the most locally isolated pathogens to commonly used antibiotics in Kerbala/Iraq

Abstract

Antibiotics are one of the biggest threats to human health. Antibiotics remain the most critical resource in the worldwide management of infections. Identifying the causative agent in an infectious disease is vital to determine their antimicrobial susceptibility. The susceptibility of pathogenic microbes has a critical role in deciding the morbidity and mortality rates of these diseases—the aim of the current study is to investigate the antimicrobial susceptibility of common pathogens in Karbala. The specimens were collected from 370 patients diagnosed with bacterial infections from Al-Hindiya Hospital in 2022. Standard microbiological techniques were implemented. Identification of microorganisms was made using biochemical tests. A pure culture was prepared for antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Antibiotic sensitivity testing was performed using the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method, and the results were interpreted. Using the standard operating procedure and the standard bacteriological procedures, we found that the most common pathological microorganisms predominance was Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Streptococcus spp. And Shigella spp. The antimicrobial patterns were: Escherichia coli strains were found to be highly sensitive to meropenem (84%) with excellent sensitivity to Levofloxacin (68%) and Nitrofurantoin (64 %) while it highly resistant to Amoxicillin, Erythromycin, Vancomycin, Novobiocin, Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, Cefotaxime, Cefepime and Tetracycline and moderate to Ciprofloxacin, Azithromycin, and Gentamicin. The most common causative agent of urinary tract infections (which are the most common infections in the population studied) was Escherichia coli. Meropenem was a broad-spectrum antimicrobial that many bacterial spp were susceptible to.