ABSTRACT

 Urinary tract infection (UTI) represents one of the most common diseases encountered in medical practice. This study was conducted to evaluate the major etiologic agent of urinary tract infections amongst patients that attend Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike Medical clinic. About 100 samples of early morning mid-stream urine samples of about 10-15 ml were collected; using UV sterilized plastic bottles with air-tight screw cap tops from Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike Health Center. All samples collected were transported to the laboratory immediately and cultured using the streak plate method on Cysteine Lactose Electrolyte Deficient agar and blood agar and incubated for 24 hours at 37°C for bacterial growth. The resulting colonies from the Cysteine Lactose Electrolyte Deficient agar and blood agar were purified by sub-culturing on freshly prepared nutrient agar plates. The plates were incubated at 35°C for 24hours. It was observed that that Escherichia coli is the most frequently occurring isolates with a percentage occurrence of 15(27.3%), followed by Pseudomonas sp with a percentage occurrence of 12(21.8%), then Staphylococcus aureus 10(18.2%), Klebsiella sp 9(16.4%) and Proteus sp 7(12.7%), whereas Streptococcus sp has the least percentage occurrence of 2(3.6%). The antibiotic sensitivity test reviewed that Gentamycin (81.8%) is the drug of choice for the treatment of skin infection following to the fact that it show high rate of sensitivity to the bacterial isolates tested, this is followed by Lefofloxascin (78.2%), Ciprofloxacin (72.7%), Cefoxitin (50.9%), Cefotaxime (47.3%) Azithromycin and Ceftriaxone (40%), Cefuroxime (32.7%), Cefexime (30.9%) where as Imipenem (23.6%) has the least percentage susceptibility to the isolates, the isolates however were moderately resistant to Imipenem (32.7%), Cefuroxime (29.1%), Cefotaxime (29.1%), Azithromycin (27.3%), Cefexime (25.5%) while few showed low resistance to Lefofloxascin (3.6%), Ciprofloxacin (9.1%) and Cefexime (12.7%). There should be reinforcements for mandatory urine culture for all suspected Urinary tract infections to properly guide the therapy. Further studies on urinary tract infections should be encouraged to properly discover more etiological agents responsible for urinary tract infection among patients under study