A comparative study of multidrug resistant bacteria (MDRB) isolated from various patients in different wards of a hospital during post Covid-19

Antibacterial resistance is an alarming global concern and a public health challenge of the twenty-first century for which effective systems are required to track and treat ABR. We performed microbiological and antibiotic susceptibility testing on the samples to detect and characterize Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria (MDRB) isolated from patients segregating MDRB characteristics (types, prevalence and distribution of MDRB) based on time (i.e., during versus post covid-19) and location (i.e., different wards of a tertiary care hospital). We observed an increase of MDRB in 2022 as compared to 2021 and 2023. These MDRB had a Shannon and Simpson index values of 1.138 to 1.508 and 0.643 to 0.775, respectively and an observed evenness values of 0.780 to 1.042, which revealed the microbial diversity recovered from the patient samples. In keeping with previous MDR studies, Klebsiella, E. coli, Citrobacter, Acinetobacter and Pseudomonas were identified from the patient samples. Moreover, compared to previous reports, the percentage of MDR-bacteria, i.e., Klebsiella (40 %), E. coli (28 %), and Citrobacter (19 %), populations were higher in this study. We observed that Gamma-proteobacteria were predominant across all the recovered samples, and that Acinetobacter and Klebsiella isolated from the samples were 100 % resistant to twenty and eleven antibiotics, respectively. Furthermore, the fatality rate was low compared with the available reports suggesting possibilities for effective recovery if given rapid and tailored treatment. Given the challenges faced by MDRB strains more surveillance and tracking is needed to ensure effective and specifically targeted treatment strategies.