Bacteriological Profile and Antibiotic Susceptibility Patterns in Neonatal Septicaemia in Tertiary Care Hospital

Introduction: Neonatal septicaemia has great role in morbidityand mortality among neonates. Neonatal mortality rate hasbeen reported in India as 17 per 1000 live births as per 2016-17 data. Neonatal septicaemia may be of early onset or lateonset depending of the age of the neonates. The mostcommon bacterial agents involved are Group B Streptococcus,Klebsiella pneumoniae, CoNS, Streptococcus pneumoniae,Haemophilus influenzae etc. Diagnosis is done by manymethods but the most important and absolute mode ofdiagnosis is blood culture.Aims and Objectives: The present study is done for thedetection of bacteriological profile and their antibioticsusceptibility pattern in case of neonatal septicaemia. Earlydiagnosis and specific treatment can save the lives of manyneonates who are suffering from neonatal septicaemia.Materials and Methods: The material used for the diagnosis isvenous blood of the suspected neonates. Blood culture methodis used for the diagnosis of Neonatal septicaemia. Repeatedsubculture is done on Blood agar, Nutrient agar, andMacConkey agar plates. Confirmation of organism is donethrough different biochemical tests. The antibiotic susceptibilitytesting was performed on Muller Hinton agar (MHA) by KirbyBauer disc diffusion method for bacterial isolates, as perclinical and laboratory standards institute (CLSI) guideline.Results: Total 206 cases of suspected neonatal septicaemiawere investigated in which 142 cases are found positive. Mostcommon organism isolated was Klebsiella pneumoniae(39.44%) than Staphylococcus aureus (33.8%), otherorganisms are Escherichia coli (9.86%), CoNS (8.48%),Pseudomonas (5.63%), Enterococcus (2.82%) etc. overallincidence of Gram negative organism (54.93%) was more thanGram positive organism (45.07%). As far as antibioticsensitivity pattern was concerned most of the organism were100% sensitive to imipenem, meropenem and colistin B andresistant to Ampicillin.Conclusion: Gram negative isolates were more common thanGram positive as the causative agents of neonatal sepsis. Themost common causative organism was Klebsiella pneumoniae.The other organisms isolated were Pseudomonas aeruginosa,Staphylococcus aureus, CoNS, etc. Most of the Gram negativeisolates were sensitive to Amikacin, Gentamycin, Ofloxacin andCiprofloxacin but were highly susceptible to Meropenem,Imipenem and Collistin-B. The Gram positive isolates werebetter sensitive to Amikacin, Cephalosporin, Ciprofloxacin andClindamycin but were less sensitive or resistant to Ampicillinand Erythromycin. They showed high susceptibility toTicoplanim, Linezolid, Vancomycin and Methicillin.