Abstract
Objective: The problem of antimicrobial resistance in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an emerging problem where the complete elimination of antimicrobial resistance is impossible due to the irrational use of antibiotics worldwide and in Saudi Arabia. Thus, the present study was undertaken to determine the prevalence of bacterial pathogens and to assess the multidrug resistant (MDR) strains to different antibiotics in Aseer Region, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Method: A retrospective analysis of 163 subjects diagnosed with variable infections during the period of February - May 2015. The study was conducted at a 500 bedded tertiary health care center. The data were collected from microbiological laboratory and patient case sheet. The bacterial isolates are categorized as sensitive or resistant based on the zone of inhibition of antibiotics. Results: Total of 15 different strains of gram positive and negative were isolated where, a urine specimen was found to have the highest number of bacterial isolates (28.8 %) and intensive care unit (ICU) had more number of isolates. Among 46 antibiotics tested, only 12 antibiotics were included in the analysis. Almost, most of the gram positive and gram negative bacterial isolates had resistance to more than three antimicrobials, which satisfies the criteria to call them as multidrug resistant bacterial isolates. Conclusion: Overall prevalence of antibiotic resistance to the commonly used antibiotics was high in the bacterial isolates selected in our study center, which warrants the infection control to reduce resistance.