Assessment of antibiotic sensitivity of the bacterial isolates from patients with bacteremia in Al-Sader Teaching hospital in Amara – Iraq

To investigate the incidence of blood-borne infection and to diagnose the causative bacteria and antibiotic sensitivity. Materials.10 ml of venous blood from (287) febrile patients were collected and subjected to bacterial diagnosis and antibiotic sensitivity test by using Vitek2 tools. Results showed that the incidence of bloodstream infection (BSI) was (54.49%) and infections were higher in adults and males than children and females. Ten Gram-negative and six Gram-positive bacterial isolates were recovered from positive blood cultures. Antibiotic sensitivity testing of the isolates revealed that vancomycin is the most effective antibiotic against gram-positive isolates while erythromycin is the weakest one. Furthermore, both of imipenem and meropenem exhibit the highest activity against gram-negative isolates, whereas piperacillin and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole represent the weakest two. Four Gram-negative isolates were found to resist all antibiotics (MAR index value = 1). In conclusion: Staphylococcus aureus and E .coli are still the most prevalent pathogenic bacteria responsible for bacteremia. Despite the high MAR index values of some isolated species, vancomycin, imipenem, and meropenem found to be the most effective antibiotics against Gram-positive isolates and Gram-negative, so it is recommended that these antibiotics could be used empirically, at least in the case where this study was conducted, before performing the culture and antibiogram processes.