Prevalence and antimicrobial resistance of Acinetobacter isolates from King Fahd general Hospital, Saudi Arabia

Multi-drug resistant (MDR) Acinetobacter baumannii has emerged as an important nosocomial pathogen and many Hospital outbreaks have been described from various geographic areas. The resistance patterns of 104 isolates from King Fahad General Hospital; Jeddah, Saudi Arabia was studied. These Acinetobacter isolates were collected in six month period, from April to December 2010 from 102 patients with various specimens including sputum, wound, urine; blood; cerebrospinal fluid and other locations. Regardless of the specimen, there was a high rate of MDR Acinetobacter spp. in ICU isolates. Of the 104 isolates of Acinetobacter, 88.5% were A. baumannii and 11.5% Non A. baumannii. All of the strains were susceptible to colistin (MIC50 ≤ 0.5 mg/l; MIC90 ≤1 mg/l) and higher MICs were recorded for all tested antibiotics. Twenty antibiotypes were observed among the Acinetobacter spp. The largest predominate antibiotype contained a total of 32 MDR strains including 29 A. baumannii (Ab) and 3 non A. baumannii isolates. The isolates gelonging to the predominate antibiotype was resistant to the tested antimicrobial agents such as amikacin, cefepime, cefotaxime, ceftazidime, ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, imipenem, meropenem, piperacillin/tazobactam, trimethoprim/ sulfamethoxazole and was sensitive to colistin and tigecycline. This study help taking effective measures for controlling Acinetobacter and data could be used in future as medical reference.