ABSTRACT

The antimicrobial resistant patterns of urinary tract bacterial isolates in females oichilc! bearing age was carried out. Mid stream urine samples from 200 pregnant women attending antenatal in various hospitals and 1 00 non pregnant women, both married and unmarried within Aba without apparent symptoms of urinary tract infection were collected and succeed to microscopy, culture and sensitivity tests. Pregnant women showed a higher prevalence of bacterial isolates (47%) than non pregnant women (27%) which was statistically highly significant (P<0.05). Esc/wrichia co/i was the most common organisms isolated in both groups. The common urinary pathogens, L.coli and K.aerogenev accounted for over 70% of the bacterial isolates. The common urinary pathogens E. co/i, K. aerogenes, 5'. aureus, P. infra/ilis isolated showed high resistance to augumcntin, tetracycline, anio ici II in, cotri moxazoic and iial Id ixic acid iii descending order. The antibiotic with the highest sensitivity in both groups was nitrofurantoin. 5'a/)hVIo(occus aureis was the most sensitive among the atl'Iogc11s and was highly susceptible to cefotaxime while Kiebsiella aerogenes was the least sensitive among the pathogens. Calculated multiple antibiotics index suggests that almost all the test organisms exhibited antibiotic resistance. Most of the isolates were resistant to 4 or more number of antibiotics. This study reveals that Gram negative organisms remain the leading group of organisms infecting the urinary tract in females of child bearing age. The high multiple antibiotics resistance identified makes it necessary for antibiotic susceptibility testing to be conducted prior to antibiotics prescription.