Occurrence of Post-Surgical Wound Infections, Bacterial Isolates, and their Susceptibility to Commonly Used Antibiotics at Kenyatta National Hospital, Kenya

Surgical site infections are now the most common and costly of all hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), accounting for 20% of all HAIs. This was a cross-sectional study to determine the occurrence of SSI, the common causative microbes and their antibacterial susceptibility pattern. Sixty-two specimens from various types of surgical wounds were processed by standard methods and antimicrobial susceptibility testing done by disc diffusion method. Recovered bacteria were Staphylococcusaureus (29.6%), Escherichiacoli (22.2%), Pseudomonasaeruginosa (12.9%), Enterococcusfaecalis and Enterobacterspp (7.4%), Klebsiellaspp (5.6%), Streptococcuspyogenes (3.7%) and Acinetobacterspp (1.9%).62.5% of the S. aureus were Methicillin-resistant MRSA, while 75% of E. faecalis were resistant to Vancomycin. Gram-negative rods were highly resistant to Ceftriaxone. Control and prevention measures should be put into place as strategy to minimize the incidence of SSIs and the spread of resistance isolates.