Prevalence and Antibiogram of MDR Pathogens Isolated from Inanimate Surfaces at Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Khulna, Bangladesh

The environment in hospital, particularly the intensive care unit, is a foremost reservoir of nosocomial bacteria, including multidrug resistant (MDR) pathogens. Inanimate surfaces and objects are the crucial transmission vehicles for nosocomial bacteria. This study assesses the bacterial profile and antibiotic susceptibility patterns of the isolates found on the inanimate surfaces at neonate intensive care unit (NICU) wards in Khulna, Bangladesh. A hospital oriented, cross-sectional study was carried out with a total of 99 samples by swabbing method from the sink, door handle, bed rail, patient bed cover, table, scissor, telephone etc. which are collected from three different hospitals. Normal saline solution was used to moistened sterile cotton swabs. The isolates were characterized through bacterial culture methods, gram staining, and biochemical assays. The antimicrobial susceptibility of each isolate was evaluated using the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion technique. Data analysis was performed using SPSS (ver.29) and GraphPad Prism (8.0.2). In this study, Staphylococcus, Escherichia, Klebsiella and Pseudomonas were the most predominant isolated bacteria, which accounted for 48.1%, 19.2%, 15.4% and 9.6% respectively. Sink, door handle, bed rail and patient bed cover are the most contaminated surfaces. Among the six isolates, 71.15% were multidrug resistant and of these, 48.0% were Gram-negative isolates. Out of 10 selected antibiotics, Colistin, Imipenem, Gentamicin and Ciprofloxacin were mostly sensitive against Acinetobacter and Corynebacterium. Although the prevention and control strategies for multidrug resistant isolates has been more challenging, but there is no alternate of implementing an active hospital infection prevention and surveillance scheme, along with systematic disinfection of surfaces to minimize bacterial colonization and the risk of infection transmission.