Etiological agents causing paediatric sepsis and their antimicrobial susceptibility pattern at a tertiary care hospital

Background: Paediatric septicemia causes significant global morbidity and mortality, particularly in resource-poor regions. The knowledge of microbiological profile of sepsis in children is utmost important to guide the treatment. This study aims to investigate the prevalent pathogens and their antimicrobial susceptibility pattern in cases of pediatric sepsis in a tertiary care hospital. Material and methods: In this cross-sectional study, a total of 321 Blood culture samples (BACTEC bottles) were collected from suspected sepsis patients aged 1 month to 18 years, admitted in the pediatric wards & intensive care units. The BACTEC bottles which flagged positive were inoculated on culture media and was further processed according to standard microbiological procedures. Antimicrobial susceptibility was done by using Kirby Bauer disc diffusion method as per Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines 2024. All the data was entered in excel sheet and analysed by using SPSS 23.0 software. Results: A total of 321 blood culture samples were collected from children aged >1month to 18 years, admitted in wards and PICU. The overall positivity rate of blood culture samples was 29%. Staphylococcus aureus (56%) was found to be the predominant pathogen followed by CoNS (21.5%), E. coli (5.4%), Acinetobacter spp. (4.3%), Candida spp. (4.3%), Klebsiella spp. (3.2%), Enterococcus spp. (3.2%) and Pseudomonas spp. (2.1%). S. aureus isolates showed high susceptibility towards vancomycin (100%), linezolid (94.9%) and minocycline (97.4%) and low susceptibility towards fluoroquinolones (38.5%) and erythromycin (28.2%). Methicillin resistance was found in 41.5% S. aureus isolates. Gram negative isolates showed fair sensitivity towards colistin, carbapenems and minocycline while poor sensitivity was found towards amoxycillin clavulanate, cephalosporins and fluoroquinolones. Conclusion: This study provides crucial information about the incidence, risk factors, prevailing pathogens causing pediatric sepsis and their changing antimicrobial trend which is required to formulate empirical treatment guidelines for better patient outcome.