A Five-year Review of Bacteremia among Jordanian Children: Pathogens and Antimicrobial Susceptibility Patterns

Al-Shara Mohammad

Faculty of Nursing, Irbid National University, Irbid, Jordan.

ABSTRACT: The present study was conducted to investigate microorganisms causing bacteremia in Jordanian children and to assess their sensitivity to various groups of antimicrobial. A retrospective study was conducted on a positive blood cultures taken from children aged below 15 years, who attended as outpatient clinics or inpatient at the Princess Rahmah Hospital between 2005 and 2009. Out of 18792 tested blood samples, a total of 1519 isolates were recovered from blood cultures obtained from children patients. The male to female isolates ratio was (1.35:1.0). Staphylococcus aureus was the most frequently isolated pathogen (68.2%), followed by Klebsiella spp. (23.5%), Streptococcus spp. (4.3%), Enterobacter sp. (2.8%) and Pseudomonas spp. (1.2%). Approximately 80% of varieties of blood isolates were susceptible to vancomycin. Aztreonam was the lowest active antimicrobial agents (16.0%) against varieties of blood isolates. Study concludes that Staphylococcus aureus was the main isolate in bacteremic children. Among variety of bacteremia isolates, susceptibility rate was 79.4% to vancomycin. Overall aztreonam resistance was near 84%, and this rate not affected due to type of blood isolates. Careful and continuous monitoring of antimicrobial resistance pattern will help guide appropriate therapeutic selection and may provide early detection of changes in resistance to more potent agents.

KEYWORDS: Antimicrobial resistant; Bacteremia; Pediatric patients

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