Antibiogram studies of Escherichia coli and Salmonella species isolated from diarrheal patients attending Malam Mande General Hospital Dutsin-Ma, Katsina State, Nigeria

INTRODUCTION: antibiotics resistant bacteria (ARB) is a worldwide problem. Information on ARB associated with diarrheal stool samples from Dutsin-Ma, Katsina State, Nigeria is scare. METHODS: this study examines 41 stool samples of diarrhea patients from a selected hospital in Dutsin-Ma. Questionnaires were used to collect demographic information and used antibiotics. Bacteria isolation and antibiotics susceptibility tests were determined using standard microbiological techniques. Multidrug resistant (MDR) bacteria were selected based on resistant to ≥3 classes of antibiotics. RESULTS: twenty bacteria that include Escherichia coli (n = 15) and Salmonella spp. (n = 5) were isolated. Pediatric age group (0-5 years) showed highest prevalence of 73.3 and 60% respectively. Illiterate patients showed highest (60%) frequency of Salmonella spp. Tetracycline was mostly observed for treating diarrhea among patients; high resistance to amoxicillin (80%), ampicillin (100%) and tetracycline (73.3%) was noticed in E. coli. To each of amoxicillin and ampicillin, 100% resistance was observed among Salmonella spp. Two and one MDR E. coli and Salmonella spp. were identified respectively. CONCLUSION: high occurrence of studied bacteria among infants and aged adults coupled with some displaying MDR characteristics calls for urgent public health attention, hence, comprehensive studies are needed for the determination of molecular epidemiology of these bacteria for public health surveillance.