Multi drug resistant pseudomonas aeruginosa: a nosocomial infection threat in burn patients

ABSTRACT

Pseudomonas aeruginosa remains the leading pathogen causing burn wound infection. It is found as major colonizer of the burn wound because it thrives on moist burn wound surface and survives well in the hospital environment, once it is established, it can persist for months within a unit, and poses as multi drug resistant nosocomial infection threat for patients being treated there. The emergence of multi drug resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa in burn wound is becoming a challenging problem in infection control programmes. A total of 44 isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa were recovered from burn patients. Most of them were resistant to multiple antibiotics. Their sensitivity against Imipenem was over all better than the other drugs i.e. 77.3%. Ciprofloxacin was the second most effective drug against this organism with a sensitivity of 54.5% while a 4th generation cephalosporin, Cefepime was effective against 22 [50%] isolates. About 30% Pseudomonas aeruginosa were sensitive to Amikacin. Aztreonam showed inhibitory activity against [6.8%] strains. Piperacillin activity was 18.2%. The efficacy of Cefutaxime was 4.5%. Chloramphenicol and Septran were 100% inactive against Pseudomonas infection while > 95% strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa were resistant to Tobramycin