Prevalence and Characterization of Antibiotic Resistant Micro-Organisms Isolated from Laboratories of different Universities

Samrah Tahir Khan*, Hira Liaqat, Noor Alam, Maryam Aftab, Hira Idrees, Asmara Imtiaz

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The problem of antimicrobial resistance is rapidly spreading. Its presence has elevated the socio-economic burden as efforts have increased in
monitoring the resistance along with the infectious disease burden. Antibiotic resistance is now regarded as a major health problem which is prevailing in different environments. The current study was conducted to evaluate the importance of Laboratory Acquired Infections (LAI) and their prevalence in different laboratories of educational institutes. The samples from the environment of the laboratory were taken and micro-organisms were identified using biochemical and microscopic analysis. S.aureus, S. epidermidis and E.coli were isolated and tested for the antimicrobial susceptibility against several commercially used antibiotics and their multidrug resistance profiling was analyzed. S.aureus had the highest resistance towards Ampicillin (93%), S.epidermidis showed an elevated resistance towards Cloxacillin (97%) while for E.coli resistant towards Neomycin was maximum (100%). Resistance was observed in case of all the commercially used antibiotics. It was concluded that the laboratory environment act as an important source for the acquisition of microorganisms and serves as a potential source for the introduction of antibiotic resistance.