Antimicrobial Resistance Among Bacterial Strains Recovered from Non-Sterile Pharmaceutical Products

Abstract:

Antibiotic resistance happens to be the main clinical and public health problem within the life time of most people living today, and the sources of antibiotic resistance bacteria is increasing in addition to the clinical and environmental sources. In this study, the presence of antibiotic resistance among bacterial strains previously recovered from non-sterile pharmaceutical products was evaluated using Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method and PCR detection of antibiotic resistance genes; bla-SHV, bla-CTX-M, bla-TEM and class 1, 2 and 3 integrase genes. The bacterial strains were also screened for the presence of plasmids. The tested bacterial strains exhibit high-level resistance to sulphamethoxazole/trimethoprim (89.5%), amoxycillin/clavunanic (68.4%), and cefixime (52.6%). However, they were highly susceptible to norfloxacin (74%). Resistant bacterial strains habours one or more of the ESBL, integrase genes and plasmids. 𝑏𝑙𝑎TEM, 𝑏𝑙𝑎CTX, class 1 integron and plasmids were present in 10 (52.6%), 03 (15.8%), 09 (47.4%) and 11 (57.9%) of the tested bacterial strains respectively. Findings of the study have shown that contaminated non-sterile pharmaceutical products are a potential source for propagation and dissemination of resistant bacterial strains and genes in the environment.