Incidence of wound infections and the prevalence of multi drug resistant Staphylococcus aureus in a Nigerian Hospital

Wound infection plays an important role in the development of chronicity, delaying wound healing. It is one of the health problems that are caused by the invasion of pathogenic organisms. This study aimed to identify the bacterial pathogens present in wounds and to determine their antibiotic susceptibility profile to the most common antibiotics used in therapy. One hundred and fifty swab samples were collected from patients with diverse types of wounds attending Federal Medical Centre, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria from September, 2013 to March, 2014. Wound swab was collected using sterile cotton swab and processed for bacterial isolation and susceptibility testing to antimicrobial agents following standard bacteriological techniques. A total of one hundred and twenty one (121) bacterial isolates were recovered. Polymicrobial infection was found in 7 (4.6%) of the wound samples and mainly constituted of two species. The most common association was Staphylococcus aureus/Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus/Escherichia coli. Twenty nine (19.3%) of the wound cultures yielded no bacterial growth. The most common bacterial species detected S. aureus (27.3%), followed by Proteus mirabilis 15 (%), Klebsiella aerogenes 15 (%), Proteus vulgaris 4(%) and Staphylococcus saprophyticus 1 (%). Resistance to antibiotics was high particularly for Nitrofurantoin (100%), tetracyclines (97.57%), Amoxillins (97.57%), Cotrimoxazole (95.1%), Nalidixic acid (95.1%), Subtamine (75.6%), Ofloxacin (70.7%) and Erythromycins (60.9%). Our study revealed that susceptibility to antibiotics varies with the different organisms implicated in wound infection, thus, indicating the essence of microbiological testing before prescribing a drug for treatment.