Aetiological agents of surgical site infection in a specialist hospital in Kano, north-western Nigeria.
Despite the advances made in asepsis, antimicrobial drugs, sterilization and operative techniques, surgical site infections (SSI) continue to be a major problem in all branches of surgery in the hospitals. The objective of this study was to establish the incidence of SSI, the type and frequency of various pathogens and their antibiotic susceptibility pattern in Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital (MMSH), Kano, Nigeria. A total of 2,920 consecutive patients who underwent different surgical procedures between January 2009 and December 2010 at Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital were enrolled in this study. Samples of pus were collected from infected cases and screened for bacterial and fungal pathogens by standard microbiological methods. Antibiotic susceptibility tests were done by disc diffusion technique. A total 878 patients were found to be clinically infected and 919 isolates were obtained in all. This gave an incidence of 30.1% infection rate. While 783 (89.2%) cultures yielded single organism, 77 (9.8%) yielded mixed growth and 18(8.1%) cultures yielded no growth. The most frequently isolated organism was E. coli (25.5%) followed by Staphylococcus aureus 20.6%. The incidence of Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus was 35.7%. Ceftriaxone, ceftazidime and ofloxacin showed good results against most isolates while ampicillin and cotrimoxazole which are commonly used drugs were ineffective. An understanding of the various types of pathogen involved in SSI and their antibiotic susceptibility pattern will reduce indiscriminate prescription of antibiotics and help in infection control.