Efficacy of Some Antibiotics and Essential Oils Against Acinetobacter baumannii: An in Vitro Study

Acinetobacter baumannii is considered as a main opportunistic pathogen in hospitals and exhibit high resistance against most antibiotic groups. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of some antibiotics and essential oils against this bacterium, in vitro.

Two hundred and one clinical samples were collected from the Children’s Hospital of Damascus. The polymerase chain reaction was conducted to identify the genus and type of bacteria. Finally, the minimum inhibitory concentrations of several antibiotics and essential oils, including Thymus syriacus, Origanum syriacum, Citrus aurantium, Cinnamomum verum, Syzygium aromaticum, Cupressus macrocarpa, Myristica fragrans, Biota orientalis, and Zingiber officinale, were investigated on Luria-Bertani broth agar.

Fifty-nine isolates of A. baumannii were identified and the results showed that the DNA fragments of 16S rRNA and the blaOXA-51_like gene were approximately equal to 280 bp and 350 bp, respectively. In addition, most effective antibiotics against 50% of bacteria in each isolate of A. baumannii were rifampicin, linezolid, and levofloxacin whereas most effective essential oils included Cupressus macrocarpa, Citrus aurantium, Myristica fragrans, and Biota orientalis.