Background: In surgical patients, infection is an important cause of morbidity and mortality. A prospective study to find the pattern of microorganisms responsible for post operative wound infections and their antibiotic susceptibility profile was therefore conducted. Setting and
Methods: Surgical wards in Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Isolation, identification and antimicrobial susceptibility screening of organisms were done employing standard microbiological techniques.
Results:Bacterial pathogens were isolated from all the specimens while the yeast
Candida
species (spp) was isolated from 12.4%.
Staphylococcus aureus
was the most frequent organism isolated accounting for 23 (18.3%) of a total of 126 isolates. Other organisms were
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
and
Bacillus
spp 11.1% each;
Escherichia coli
10.3%;
Candida spp 8.7%; Coagulase negative staphylococci 8.7%;
Pseudomonas
spp 6.3%;
Serratia odorifera
4.7%;
Bacteroides
4.0%;
Enterococcus
spp 3.2%; the remaining isolates were other enterobacteria. Sensitivity of the bacterial isolates to antibiotics varied. In general, resistance
to the β-lactam antibiotics was above 98%, whilst more than 70% of isolates were resistant to erythromycin, fusidic acid and tobramycin.
Conclusions:The infections were polymicrobic and multidrug resistant. The quinolones, ciprofloxacin and ofloxacin, should be used as frontline drugs in the management of surgical wound infections at the hospital.
