Prevalence and Detection of Multidrug Resistance Bacterial Strains Isolated from the Different Inanimate Surfaces of the Hospital Environment

Abstract

Nosocomial infections or Hospital-acquired infections (HAI) influence the clinical outcomes in hospital in-patients and indicate a serious global concern in medicine. Fomites of hospital environments carry a deadly pathogen and transmit infectious diseases. The emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the hospital environment has increased due to misuse and/or overuse of antibiotics. The present study was aimed to evidence the MDR bacterial pathogens from the fomites of the hospital environment. The study was conducted in Acute care hospital, in Cuddalore district, Tamil Nadu, India. Totally 65 samples were collected from the different areas of the hospital including Operation Theatre (OT), Orthopaedics Surgery (OS), Wound and emergency Unit (WEU), Intensive care unit (ICU), Dialysis Unit (DU), Special Ward (SW) from March 2022 to September 2022 and the samples were processed for the isolation of bacteria using Nutrient agar, Macconkey agar and Blood agar. Totally 84 isolates were identified in that 48 and 36 isolates were gram positive and gram-negative respectively. Bacillus spp, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus spp, Micrococcus spp, E. coli, Salmonella spp and the proteus spp. were the common isolates of this study and most of them showed multidrug resistance. In gram-positive isolates Bacillus spp. (22%) was dominant followed by Staphylococcus aureus (21%) and in gram-negative bacterial isolates Salmonella spp. (17%) were dominant followed by E.coli (16%). Among the bacterial isolates, 18% showed multidrug resistance (MDR) followed by 3% and 2% of XDR and PDR respectively. All the studied surfaces of the hospital carried minimum bacterial contamination. So more hygienic practices and effective disinfection practices should be implemented in the studied hospital to prevent the spread of nosocomial infections.