Phenotypic and genotypic studies on antimicrobial resistance of some bacteria causing septic meningitis

Abstract

The present study was concerned with the isolation of bacteria from cerebrospinal fluid CSF of Egyptian patients suffering from septic meningitis, and screening them against different antimicrobials agents commonly used to treat septic meningitis. Identifying the most common bacterial pathogens together with their resistance profile against major antibiotics used in the empirical treatment of septic meningitis was also included in the study. In addition, this study aimed at investigating the most common genes involved in bacterial resistance and to evaluate use of various antibiotic combinations for possible synergistic activities against the most clinically relevant pathogens causing septic meningitis particularly MDR. In this study, a total of 1337 cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) specimens from suspected cases of meningitis were collected over a period of two years from September 2013 to September 2015. The majority of meningitis cases were possibly viral meningitis (573; 42.86%), followed by cases that exhibited diseases with symptomatic similarities to meningitis in which specimen’s cell count was reported “Zero” (467;