Abstract

Background: Neonatal sepsis is one of the commonest causes of neonatal mortality in the developing world. There is a continuous change in the patterns of microbial flora and their antimicrobial susceptibility. The aim of this study was to determine the microbial agents causing neonatal sepsis, the susceptibility of these microorganisms to the commonly used antimicrobial agents at Hevi Hospital and to compare the causative agents during the last four years.Methods:A retrospective study was conducted over a period of four years. From the recorded data of archives of Hevi Teaching Hospital from 2014 till 2017, a total of 1058 blood cultures were taken. The positive and negative cultures were 536 and 522 respectively. From the positive cultures, 555 pathogens were isolated.Results: The present study revealed that the female to male ratio for neonatal sepsis was 1.5:1 and the most common microorganisms isolated were Coagulase-Negative Staphylococci consisting (58.5%) of cases; followed by Staphylococcus aureus (16.6%) and Escherichia coli (7.6%). The higher percentage of neonatal sepsis (30%) was recorded in 2017. There is no statistical significant difference regarding the causative microorganism for the early and late neonatal sepsis except for the Enterococcus species; with their highest percentage among late neonatal sepsis. Conclusions: This study revealed that resistance against many commonly used antibiotics have been increased which limits the options for treating of neonatal sepsis. This is resulted from uncontrolled use of the antibiotics and lack of policies and guidelines for their use in public health.

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The article was added to IASJ on 2020-01-02

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