Resistance pattern of enterococcus for high level aminoglycosides and vancomycin in blood culture of admitted patients

Enterococci have emerged as important nosocomial pathogens from a variety of clinical conditions and the major reason for this is the trend of increasing antimicrobial resistance and enterococcal bacteraemia results in a high mortality. The present study was undertaken to determine the occurrence, species prevalence, antibacterial resistance, with a special reference to vancomycin and high level aminoglycoside resistance. Material and methods: The study was conducted on blood culture isolates. The antibiotic susceptibility of isolates by the Kirby Bauer disc diffusion method was done according to the CLSI guidelines. Screening tests for high level aminoglycosides and vancomycin and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) tests for vancomycin was done. The blood specimens were cultured and suspected growths were identified to species level and found to consist mostly of E. fecalis (70%). VRE accounted for 2 (91%) isolates and high level aminoglycoside resistance was seen in 47.82 and 60.86 isolates. The E. faecium isolates were more drug resistant than the E. faecalis isolates. Linezolid and Teicoplanin showed good anti-enterococcal activity. This study shows an emergence of Vancomycin resistant enterococcus (VRE) along with increased rate of multidrug-resistant enterococci. Regular surveillance of antimicrobial susceptibilities and treatment of enterococcal infections should be done effectively to limit the spread of multidrug resistance.