Bacterial spectrum and antibiogram of pediatric blood stream infections in a tertiary care set-up of Islamabad: A wake up call to implement antimicrobial stewardship programme

Background: Blood stream infections (BSI) are frequently widespread in the pediatric population targeting over 25 million children yearly with a projected mortality of around three million globally. It remains a significant global health concern especially in developing countries with a substantively high disease burden. Current study is aimed at establishing bacteriologic profile and antibiogram in pediatric patients using blood cultures as a gold standard and to guide towards proper empiric therapy and help preclude adverse consequences of this disease. Material and Methods: This descriptive, cross sectional study was carried out in Children’s Hospital, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad from January 2023 till June 2023. Patients aged 1 day till 12yrs with strong clinical suspicion of sepsis were included in the study. Blood cultures were dealt with in the microbiology lab to determine the bacterial spectrum along with their antimicrobial susceptibility. Results: Out of 3288 blood samples, 723(21.9%) isolates yielded positive growth. The pre-dominant isolates were gram negative rods i.e. 403(55.7%) followed by gram positive bacteria 296(40.9%), while 24(3.3%) isolates yielded Candida spp. Staph aureus1 27(17.5%), Klebsiella pneumonia 149(20.6%), and Pseudomonas aeuroginosa 81 (11.2%) were identified as the most prevalent isolates. Vancomycin, Linezolid, Imipenem, Meropenem and Colistin showed higher sensitivity against majority of the bacterial isolates. Conclusion: This study highlights the microbiological profile and antibiogram of pediatric sepsis and underscores the need to implement antimicrobial stewardship programme to contest this ever-rising multi-drug disease burden. Keywords: Antibiogram, Blood stream infections (BSI), Multi-drug resistance (MDR).