Prevalence of Pathogenic Bacteria and Antibiotic Susceptibility Profiles Isolated from Medical Equipment and Inanimate Surface

Background: The hospital environment, especially the intensive care unit, is a leading reservoir of nosocomial bac-teria. Equipment and inanimate surfaces are among the most transmission vehicles for nosocomial bacteria. This study is to assess the bacterial profile and antibiotic susceptibility pattern of the isolates from medical equipment and inanimate surfaces at intensive care unit wards in Bahir Dar City government hospital, North West Ethiopia.Methods: A hospital-based, cross-sectional study was conducted between March 01/2021 and May 30/2021 at Felege Hiwot and Tibebe Gihon Compressive Specialized Hospitals. A total of 158 surface swab samples from the patient bed, table, chair, sphygmomanometer, and stethoscopes were collected. Sterile cotton-tipped swabs moist-ened with normal saline were used. Using standard protocols, the collected samples were processed at Bahir Dar University, Microbiology Laboratory. All isolates were cultured and identified by using routine bacterial culture, Gram staining, and biochemical tests. Phenotypic antimicrobial susceptibility testing was done on each isolate fol-lowing the Kirby Bauer disk diffusion method. Data were entered and analyzed using SPSS version 26 and the re-sults were explained by using percentages and tables.Results: In this study, coagulase-negative Staphylococcus, S. aureus, and K. pneumoniae were the most predomi-nant isolated bacteria, which accounted for 52.8%, 47.2%, and 43.2% respectively. Chairs, sphygmomanometers, and patient beds were the most contaminated. Imipenem and clindamycin were the most effective antibiotics for all Gram-negative and Gram-positive isolates, respectively. Among the total isolates, 84 (57.5%) were multidrug resistant and of these, 78.4% were Gram-negative isolates.Conclusions: Inanimate objectives and key medical devices of the hospital are heavily contaminated with poten-tially pathogenic bacteria. Additionally, the recovered isolates are multidrug resistant, making the control and prevention strategy more challenging. Thus, the hospital infection prevention and surveillance system must be activated and perform periodic disinfection of objects. Furthermore, large-scale surveillance is desirable.(Clin. Lab. 2023;69:1141-1150. DOI: 10.7754/Clin.Lab.2022.220834)