Molecular studies on antibiotic resistant Gram negative bacteria isolated from Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and their susceptibility to some medicinal plant extracts

Abstract

Neonatal infections are considered as the first cause of newborn mortality; more than 10 million neonates die before the age of five according to the world health organization (WHO) reports (WHO. 2005). In this study 44 samples were collected from Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). 77.2% were recovered from female patients and 22.7% from males. Samples were collected from different sources such as blood, urine, CSF, eye discharges etc. 36.4% of the samples were recovered from blood. It was observed that Acinetobacter baumanni and Klebsiella pneumoniae were the most common pathogens in the clinical samples of blood (25 and 37.5%, respectively). Antibiotic susceptibility test showed that all the isolates were multidrug resistant (MDR) with variable percentages of resistance. Stenotrophomonas maltophilia exhibited resistance to 90% of the tested antibiotics. Providencia stuartii showed resistance to 86.7% of the tested antibiotics, Sphingomonas paucimobilis was resistant to 73.3% while Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates showed resistance from 50 to 73.3% for the tested antibiotics. Escherichia coli showed resistance to 46.6- 66.6% of the tested antibiotics