Despite the advances made in asepsis, antimicrobial drugs, sterilization and operative techniques,
surgical site infections (SSI) continue to be a major problem in all branches of surgery in the hospitals. The
objective of this study was to establish the incidence of SSI, the type and frequency of various pathogens
and their antibiotic susceptibility pattern in Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital (MMSH), Kano, Nigeria.
A total of 2,920 consecutive patients who underwent different surgical procedures between January 2009
and December 2010 at Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital were enrolled in this study. Samples of pus
were collected from infected cases and screened for bacterial and fungal pathogens by standard
microbiological methods. Antibiotic susceptibility tests were done by disc diffusion technique. A total 878
patients were found to be clinically infected and 919 isolates were obtained in all. This gave an incidence of
30.1% infection rate. While 783(89.2%) cultures yielded single organism, 77(9.8%) yielded mixed growth and
18(8.1%) cultures yielded no growth. The most frequently isolated organism was
E. coli
(25.5%) followed by
Staphylococcus aureus
20.6%. The incidence of Methicillin resistant
Staphylococcus aureus was 35.7%.
Ceftriaxone, ceftazidime and ofloxacin showed good results against most isolates while ampicillin and
cotrimoxazole which are commonly used drugs were ineffective. An understanding of the various types of
pathogen involved in SSI and their antibiotic susceptibility pattern will reduce indiscriminate prescription of
antibiotics and help in infection control.
