Blood Stream Infections and Its Antimicrobial Sensitivity in Tertiary Care Hospital, India

The present study was undertaken to describe aerobic bacteriological profile and its antibiotic sensitivity pattern from blood culture specimen in a tertiary care setting to guide clinicians to initiate empiric antibiotic therapy and to formulate antibiotic policy. The isolation of a bacterium from the blood of a patient is valuable firstly in indicating the urgent need for antibacterial therapy, secondly in revealing the species of bacterial agent against which therapy should be directed and finally in providing a culture for the performance of in vitro antibiotic susceptibility tests. The study is carried out in Department of Microbiology, People’s Medical College and Research Centre, Bhopal from July 2015 to March 2016. A total of 647 samples of blood collected during July to December 2015 from clinical cases of bacteremia were included in the study. Out of 647 blood culture samples, 106 (16.38%) were positive. Out of 106 positive cultures, 47 (44.34%) were gram-positive and 59 (55.66%) were gram-negative. Bloodstream infection is a challenging problem, and sometimes, it may be life threatening; therefore, timely detection, identification, and antimicrobial susceptibility testing of blood-borne pathogens are one of the most important functions of diagnostic microbiology laboratory.