Incidence and Antibiotic Susceptibility Profile of Staphylococcus aureus Isolates from Wounds of Patients at Specialist Hospital, Sokoto, Nigeria

Staphylococcus aureus is an important human pathogen causing varieties of mild to life threatening community and hospital on-set infections. This study was carried out to determine the antibiotic susceptibility profile of Staphylococcus aureus isolated from wounds of patients at a tertiary healthcare facility in Sokoto, Nigeria.
All wound swabs obtained from patients with wound infections during the study period were cultured on mannitol salt agar media. The isolates were identified using standard microbiological methods. Antibiotic susceptibility test was carried out on the identified isolates using the modified Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method and methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) test was carried out using Oxacillin agar screen test as described by Clinical and Laboratory Standard Institute (CLSI, 2016).
A total of twenty (20) Staphylococcus aureus were isolated from thirty-eight (38) wound specimens investigated. Out of which, five (25.0%) were found to be MRSA. The isolates were resistant to most of the antibiotics tested and susceptible only to Gentamicin (85%), Norfloxacin (80%) and Amoxiclav (50%).
The high incidence of Staphylococcus aureus isolates resistant to the commonly used antibiotics in the hospital calls for urgent need to put in place measures to curtail the spread of MRSA infections in the hospital.