Occurrence of Staphylococcus aureus among Inpatients of a Tertiary Hospital in Jalingo, Taraba State, Nigeria

Patients stay longer on admission as a result of being infected by certain pathogens like S.aureus. One hundred isolates were obtained from clinical specimens of patients who had stayed for not less than 72 hours in male and female wards of Specialist hospital, Jalingo. The specimens used were sputum, nasalswab, throat swab and wound swab. Standard procedures were used in the isolation and identification of the bacteria as well as in determining the antimicrobial resistance profile. However, resistance to cefoxitin was used to identify the MRSA Neverthless, 21% of the isolates were S. aureus while 61.9% of the S.aureus were MRSA. Though, the prevalence of S.aureus was highest (23.1%) in the nasal swab of inpatients aged 46-55(p=0.054), wound swab (17.4%) of inpatients aged 26-35(p=0.254), throat swab (6.5%) of inpatients aged 36-45 years (p=0.935) and sputum (3.0%) of inpatients aged 36-45 and 76-85(p=0.009), all the S.aureus isolated from the nares were MRSA. All the S.aureus were multi drug resistant-they were respectively 76.2%,90.5%,81.0%,85.7%,47.6% and 52.3% resistant to gentamycin (10μg), ciprofloxacin (20μg), streptomycin (10μg), erythromycin(10μg), cefuroxime (30μg) and levofloxacin (20μg).However,100% resistance was observed in Ampiclox(30μg), Amoxacillin(30μg). Zinnocef (20μg), Cefriaxone (20μg) and cefoxime (10μg).It is therefore recommended that further study be carried out to find out whether there is a relationship between the prevalence of MRSA and the site of isolation(specimen). Also, there is need to find out if there are conditions in the nares that promote the acquisition of mec A gene by S.aureus.