ABSTRACT

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a bacterium that has an incredible nutritional versatility. Colonies are about 1-5um long and 0.5-1.0um wide. It is found in soil, water, skin flora, and most manmade environment throughout the world. It is not only in normal atmosphere, but also in hypoxic atmosphere, and has thus, colonized many natural and artificial environments. An opportunistic nosocomial pathogen of immunocompromised individuals, P. aeruginosa typically infects the pulmonary tract, urinary tract, burns, wounds, and also causes other blood infections, It is the common cause of infection of burn injuries and of the outer ear, and is the most frequent colonizer of medical devices (e.g catheter). The organism was identified using standard cultural, morphological techniques. Biochemical tesrs were also employed. The pure culture of the isolate was inoculated into sterile nutrient agar in petri dish and incubated at 30^oC for 24hrs, in order to maintain growth of the test organism. Out of the 10 antibiotics used, gentamycin had the highest diameter at 24mm. The antibiotic with the lowest zone of inhibition was chloramphenicol at 6mm. The susceptibility profile of P. aeruginosa had its highest sensitivity observed for gentamycin, moderate susceptibility was observed for ciprofloxacin and tarivid while strong resistance was observed for chloramphenicol, perfloxacin and augmentin. The organism’s relative high resistance to 6 out of the 10 antibiotics used is probably because the organism has developed resistance over the years to these antibiotics. One of the factors associated with the multidrug resistance is the expended and in some cases, indiscriminate use of antibiotics in nosocomial environments and the community in general. Antibiotic resistance is becoming a big problem for the public health which threatens the lives of hospitalized individual as well as those with chronic conditions and adds considerably to health care cost. Therefore, it is an important issue to be addressed by the policy makers to formulate a strict antibiotic prescription policy in the country.