A compilation of antimicrobial susceptibility data from a network of 13 Lebanese hospitals reflecting the national situation during 2015–2016

BACKGROUND: There is a lack of official national antimicrobial resistance (AMR) data in Lebanon. Individual hospitals generate their own antibiotic susceptibility data in the form of yearly pamphlets. METHODS: In this study, antibiotic susceptibility data from 13 hospitals distributed across different governorates of Lebanon were collected to conduct a compilation-based surveillance of AMR in Lebanon for the years 2015–2016. The findings were compared with those of a previous nationwide study in this country conducted between 2011 and 2013 as well as with similar data obtained from the 2015 and 2016 European surveillance reports of AMR. To provide a clear presentation of the AMR situation, mean percent susceptibility of different antibiotic–microbe combinations was calculated. RESULTS: During 2015–2016, the percent susceptibility of Enterobacteriaceae to third-generation cephalosporins and to carbapenems was 59 and 97%, respectively. Among Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter spp., carbapenem susceptibility reached 70 and 12%, respectively. Among Gram positive organisms, the percent susceptibility to methicillin in Staphylococcus aureus was 72%, that to vancomycin in Enterococcus spp. was 98% and that to penicillin in Streptococcus pneumoniae was 75%. Compared with results of 2011–2013, there was an overall trend of decreased susceptibility of bacteria to the tested antibiotics, with a variation of 5 to 10%. The antibiotic susceptibility data from Lebanon were found to be comparable with those from Eastern and South-eastern European countries. CONCLUSION: This study highlights the need to establish a robust national AMR surveillance system that enables data from Lebanon to be included in global AMR maps. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13756-019-0487-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.