Antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of pathogenic bacteria causing urinary tract infections at the Specialist Hospital, Yola, Adamawa state, Nigeria

The prevalence of bacteria causing UTIs as well as their susceptibility to commonly used antibiotics have been investigated from January, 2007 - June, 2009 at the Specialist Hospital, Yola. The prevalence of UTIs in the referral hospital was 67.2%. The incidence was higher in females with a prevalence rate of 54.3%, while in males the recorded value was 45.7%. Gram-negative isolates had a prevalence of 74.7%, while gram-positive isolates had 25.30%. The bacteria isolated in order of ranking were E. coli (24.5%), K. pneumoniae (17.3%), P. mirabilis (14.6%), S. faecalis (13.4%), S. aureus (5.3 %), P. vulgaris (4.7%), P. stuartii (4.1%), S. epidermidis (3.8%), A. faecalis (3.4%), S. saprophyticus (2.8%),P. aeruginosa (2.5%), S. marsescens (2.0%) and C. fruendii (1.7%). The highest proportion of isolates were E. coli (24.5%), K. pneumoniae (17.3%), P. mirabilis(14.6%), S. faecalis (13.4%), S. aureus (5.3%), P. vulgaris (4.7%), and P. stuartii(4.1%) accounting for 83.9% of the total number of isolates recovered from the urine samples. Other less-frequent isolates in aggregate caused 16.1% of infections. Antibiotic sensitivity and resis-tance analysis were performed by the disc diffusion method employing commercial antibiotics discs. Susceptibility of the clinical isolates to antibiotics commonly used in the 750 bed referral hospital was variable, depending on species and drug in question. The mean susceptibility of the isolates re-corded were E. coli (36.3%), K. pneumoniae (44.1%), P. mirabilis(47.8%), S. faecalis (51.3%), S. aureus (43.1 %), P. vulgaris (48.1%), P. stuartii(45.0%), S. epidermidis (49.7%), Al. faecalis (54.5%), S. saprophyticus (54.2%),P. aeruginosa (38.6%), S. marcescens (44.2%) and C. fruendii (40.4%). The mean sensitivity of the antibiotics were ofloxacin (63.8%), gentamycin (13.26%), streptomycin (37.0%), colistin (49.2%), am-picillin (25.4%), nalidixic acid (45.5%), nitrofurantoin (55.4%), augmentin (64.9%), tetracycline (27.0%), cotrimoxazole(41.8%), pefloxacin (34.9%), chloramphenicol (50.9%), and erythromycin (51.6%). The data obtained in this study highlight the problems of bacterial prevalence and resistance among uro-pathogenic bacteria in Yola, Nigeria.