Characterization of Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae from Patients Stool in Tertiary Hospitals, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriacaeae (CRE) are a serious new public-health problem. Carbapenem medicines are a class of antibiotics that are often used to treat severe infections caused by bacteria that are antibiotic-resistant. The goal of this study was to use both conventional and molecular methods to isolate, characterize, and identify Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae from stool samples of patients at two tertiary hospitals in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. A total of 114 feacal samples were collected and inoculated onto Eosin methylene blue (EMB) agar and MacConkey agar (M.A) plates. The plates were incubated for 24-48 hours. Representative colonies after incubation were isolated and subjected to phenotypic characterisation using Biochemical Test, followed by antibiotic susceptibility testing. Further characterisation was done by subjecting the isolates to molecular analysis. In this study, 52 isolates of 114 stool samples of enteric organisms were identified; 32 were from females while 20 were from males. The gender distribution of these isolates showed that the Enteric organisms were more predominant in females than in males with male subjects having E. coli 7 (35.0%), Klebsiella spp 7 (35.0%), Salmonella spp 2 (10%), Shigella spp 2 (10%) and Pseudomonas spp 2 (10%) while the female subjects had E. coli 12 (37.5%), Klebsiella spp 13 (40.6%), Salmonella spp 3 (9.4%), Shigella spp 3 (9.4%) and Pseudomonas spp 1 (3.1%). Results showed that Klebsiella spp recorded the highest frequency with 20 (38.5%), followed by E. coli with 19 (36.5%), Salmonella spp 5 (9.6%), Shigella spp 5(9.6%) and Pseudomonas spp 3 (5.8%). Results of the antibiotic susceptibility pattern showed that all the isolates were very susceptible to ciprofloxacin and ofloxacin. Although the meropenem antibiotics showed high sensitivity to the enteric organisms, ciprofloxacin and ofloxacin are recommended for treatment since they have higher antibiotic activities against the enteric bacteria.