Bacteraemia in a tertiary care urban hospital in south India.

ABSTRACT

A total of 1727 blood samples were cultured aerobically over a one year period, of which 201(11.8%) were positive. The ratio of Gram positive to Gram negative bacteraemia was 11. The three antimicrobials having the highest activities against the Gram positive isolates were amikacin, cefotaxime, and ciprofloxacin to which 88.5, 81.7 and 80.7 percent of the strains were susceptible and the same agents were equally effective against Gram negative organisms with 84.5, 75.3 and 70.1 percent efficacy respectively. Coagulase negative Staphylococcus spp. was the most frequent organism isolated(60; 29.8%), followed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa (40; 19.9%), and Staphylococcus aureus (34; 16.9%).