A Decade of an Underestimated Nosocomal Pathogen- Acinetobacter In a Tertiary Care Hospital in Punjab

24 www.jkscience.org Vol. 11 No. 1, January-March 2009 Acinetobacter are opportunistic pathogens that readily colonize patients with compromised host defences. Acinetobacter calcoaceticus, the species usually involved in human infection, causes disease chiefly in a hospital setting usually associated with respiratory therapy equipment and indwelling catheters. Sepsis, pneumonia and urinary tract infections are the most frequent manifestations (1). Excluding enterobacteriaceae, Acinetobacter species and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia are the second and third most common gram negative bacilli respectively encountered in clinical specimens (2). This genus contains strictly aerobic, short, often capsulate, nonmotile, Gram negative (or gram variable) bacilli or coccobacilli (often diplo coccobacilli) that grows well on simple media. ORIGINAL ARTICLE