Types and drug susceptibility patterns of bacterial isolates from eye discharge samples at Gondar University Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: The type and pattern of organisms that cause ocular infection changes over time. Moreover, the causative organisms have developed increased drug resistance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the prevalent bacterial agents of eye discharge and their drug susceptibility patterns to commonly used antimicrobial agents. METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted at Gondar University Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia from September, 2009 to August, 2012. Culture and drug susceptibility test results of patients who had eye infections were taken for analysis. Eye discharge samples were cultured on MacConkey agar, blood agar and chocolate agar plates. A standard biochemical procedure was used for full identification of bacterial isolates. Antimicrobial susceptibility tests were done on Mueller-Hinton agar by using disk diffusion method. Data was entered and analyzed by using SPSS version 16 software. RESULT: A total of 102 eye discharges were submitted for microbiological evaluation, of which (60.8%) had bacterial growth. The most frequently isolated bacterial isolates were gram-positive bacteria (74.2%). The predominant bacterial species isolated was Coagulase-negative staphylococci (27.4%) followed by S. aureus (21%). Within the age group of 1 day-2 years old, (66.1%) of bacteria were isolated. Most of the bacterial isolates were resistance to ampicilin (71%), amoxicilin (62.9%), erythromycin (43.5%), gentamicin (45.2%), penicillin (71%), trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole (58.1%), and tetracycline (64.6%) while Ceftriaxon and Ciprofloxacin showed (75.8%) and (80%) susceptibility respectively. From the total bacterial isolates, (87.1%) were showed multi drug resistance (MDR) to two or more drugs. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of bacterial isolates in eye discharge was high in the study area and majority of isolates were gram-positive bacteria. Most of the bacterial isolates were resistant to frequently used antimicrobials. Therefore, drug susceptibility test is necessary before prescribing any antimicrobials.