Utility of information technology software for surveillance of antimicrobial resistance in National Liver Institute

Background: Staphylococcus aureusis a major human Gram-positive pathogen that causes both community and healthcare settings infections. This study, a first of its kind which was done in National Liver Institute-Egypt, carried out by using the WHONET software to monitor, analyze and share the antimicrobial susceptibility data of Staphylococcus aureusat various level. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from January 2022 to December 2023. Characterization of the Staphylococcus isolates were done by conventional methods. Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (AST) was performed by Kirby Bauer’s disc diffusion method and/ or automated VITEK 2 System. The data entry and analysis were done by using the WHONET 5.6 software. Results: Among 4772 isolates, 1071(22.4%) were identified as S. aureus recovered from different clinical sources; blood borne infections (26.8%), respiratory tract infection(23.6%) pus (18.6%), soft tissue and body fluids samples (12.3%) Urine (6.1%) and other samples (18,7%), the isolated S.aureus were more sensitive to linezolid (79.4%), then Amikacin (73.7%), Teicoplanin (72.4%), Trimethoprim/Sulfamethoxazole (63.6%), Vancomycin (55.4%) Rifampicin (55.3%), Gentamycin (54.4%), and Tetracycline (52.6%). On the other hand penicillin G, Cefotaxime, Erythromycin, Oxacillin, Ciprofloxacin, Levofloxacin, Moxifloxacin and Clindamycin were the most resistant with a percentage resistance of 99.5%, 99.3%, 84.4%, 66%, 64.3%, 63%, and 53.1% and (47.1%) respectively. While 66%, 44.6 % and 9% of S.aureus isolated were MRSA, MRSA-Vancomycin resistance and Pan drug resistance respectively. Conclusion: The prevalence of MDR S. aureus and MRSA were high and presented an increase trend. These findings emphasized the importance of infection control measures and the judicious use of antibiotics to prevent the spread of MRSA and MDR S. aureus strains in hospital settings.