Abstract
Enterobacteriaceae
have been classified as severely drug resistant bacteria by the World Health Organization due to their extensive production and dissemination of carbapenemases (CPs) and extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBL). The current study was conducted with the aim to determine the prevalence of CP- and ESBL-producing
Enterobacteriaceae,
as well as their antibiotic susceptibility profiles. For this, a hospital-based study was conducted which included 384 participants with bacterial infections. The collection and processing of specimens was conducted per standard microbiological protocol. The samples were inoculated on agar media plates to obtain the bacterial growths, and if they were positive for any bacterial growth, the antibiotic susceptibility testing was performed using disk diffusion method to check their antibiotic susceptibility patterns. The double disc diffusion as well as carbapenem inhibition techniques were used to examine the CP enzymes. Multiplex real-time PCR technique was performed to identify three distinct genetic types of CPs that have been identified in the
Enterobacteriaceae
(
KPC
,
NDM
, and
OXA-48
). A majority of participants (58.3%) in the current study were living in urban areas. A total of 227 (59.1%) patients were hospitalized. Furthermore, 26.04% of the patients were determined to be suffering from infections with
Enterobacteriaceae
.
Escherichia coli
was the most prevalent (9.1%) isolate overall, followed by
Klebsiella pneumoniae
(8.07%),
Acinetobacter baumannii
(2.6%),
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
(3.1%),
Enterobacter cloacae
(1.3%),
Proteus
spp. (1.3%), and
Morganella
spp. (0.5%). The studied patients were suffering from urinary tract infections (48.6%), blood stream infections (32.2%), wounds infection (11.9%), and respiratory infections (7.03%), confirmed with bacterial cultures. The resistance against carbapenems was seen in 31.4% of
E. coli
isolates, 25.8% in
K. pneumoniae
, 50% in
P. aeruginosa
, 25% in
A. baumannii
, and 20% in
E. cloacae
isolates. Such high rates of CP- and ESBL-producing
Enterobacteriaceae
are alarming, suggesting high spread in the study area. It is advised to implement better infection prevention and control strategies and conduct further nationwide screening of the carriers of these pathogens. This might help in reducing the burden of highly resistant bugs.