Bacteriology of ocular infections and antibiotic susceptibil-ity pattern in Gondar university hospital, North West Ethiopia

Background: Ocular infection is a major public health problem particularly in developing countries like Ethiopia. Objective: This retrospective study was conducted to identify the causative agents of ocular infection and susceptibility pattern to the commonly prescribed antibiotics in the locality. Methods: The study was conducted at the University of Gondar Teaching Hospital from September 2004 to August 2008. Culture and antibiotic susceptibility test results of patients who had eye infections were taken for analysis. Eye swab specimens were processed for bacterial culture according the standard procedures. Antimicrobial susceptibility test for isolated organisms was done using Agar disk diffusion method. The data were entered and analyzed using SPSS soft ware version 13 package. Results: Among the 236 eye swabs cultured, 54.2% were positive for different types of bacterial pathogens. Gram negative bacteria accounted for 44.5% and the predominant isolate was E. coli (14.8%). The Gram positive bacteria comprised 55.5% and the predominant isolate was S. aureus (21.1%). Multiple antibiotic resistances were observed in 77.3% of bacterial isolates to the commonly prescribed antibiotics. Conclusion: The magnitude of bacterial eye infections in the area was high. Most isolates were resistant to the commonly used antibiotics. We recommend that the findings from this retrospective data will be useful for the selection of effective antibiotics and calls for detailed further study.