ANTIMICROBIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY PATTERN OF UROPATHOGENS AT A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL IN CENTRAL INDIA DURING COVID ERA.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to study the bacteriological profile of UTI in patients attending the tertiary care hospital and to study the antimicrobial sensitivity pattern of uropathogens.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted after obtaining clearance from the institutional ethics committee. Clean-catch mid-stream urine samples were collected from patients symptomatic of UTIs. Samples were cultured aerobically on CLED agar. Isolates having significant growth (>105CFU/ml) were further processed for identification using standard microbiological techniques and their antimicrobial susceptibility pattern was evaluated by the Standard Kirby Bauer disk diffusion method as per CLSI 2020 guidelines.Results: A total of 480 urine samples were processed, yielding 174 isolates. Escherichia coli (42.50%) was predominant, followed by Klebsiella pneumonia, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Acinetobacter spp., Proteus spp., Providencia spp., Enterococcus spp., Citrobacter spp. and Morganella morganii. Gram-positive isolates exhibited high sensitivity towards vancomycin, linezolid, meropenem, and piperacillin tazobactum. Enteric coliforms exhibited high sensitivity towards colistin, meropenem, aminoglycosides, and piperacillin tazobactum. Non-fermenters exhibited high sensitivity towards colistin, meropenem, cefepime, and amoxycillin clavulanate.Conclusion: The rampant injudicious irrational overuse of antibiotics has led to the emergence of multi-drug resistant bugs, which is posing a serious challenge to clinicians in the management of infections. Developing therapeutic protocols guided by susceptibility profiles for tuning antibiotic therapy regimens is an important strategy in tackling this menace.