Evaluation of Bacterial Species in Patients with Skin Infection and their Antibiogram

Introduction: The skin is a barrier that limits invasion and growth of pathogenic bacteria. Bacterial species in patients with skin infection and their antibiogram were evaluated for the presence of inhabiting bacteria.

Method: The sample obtained with swab sticks were streaked on their respective culture plates containing nutrient agar, MacConkey agar and blood agar, incubated 370 for 24h. The recovered bacteria after incubation were characterized and identified according to standard microbiological criteria.

Results: Five bacteria species were isolated which includes Staphylococus aureus; Escherichia coli, Klebsiella specie, Proteus sp and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Staphylococus aureus (33.03%) had the highest percentage occurrence while Proteus Sp (9.17%) had the lowest percentage occurrence. The highest number of isolates were recovered from male patients (61.47%). Age wise the least percentage of isolates were gotten from age group 31-40 (1.83%) while the highest was obtained from those within the age range of 11-20 (40.37%) followed by 1-10 years of age (25.69%). More isolates were recovered from in-patients (68.81%) than from Out-patients (31.19%). The antibiotic sensitivity test showed that Klebsiella sp, Proteus spp and Staphylococcus aureus were sensitivity to all the antibiotics tested while pseudomonas aeruginosa had 30% activity (sensitivity to only 3 drugs) for the antibiotics used in this study.

Conclusion: From this study, it can be said that Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella sp, Proteus sp and Pseudomonas aeruginosa are implicated in the skin infections in humans and their presence if not treated will lead to long term disease in human affected.