The Antibiotic Resistance Pattern in Citro- bacter Species: An Emerging Nosocomial Pathogen in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Members of the genus, Citrobacter, a gram negative, nonsporing rod which belongs to the family, Enterobacteriaceae are emerging as important nosocomial pathogens. The study was carried out to determine the frequency and the anti-microbial sensitivity pattern of the Citrobacter species among the various gram negative isolates which were obtained from different clinical samples. Out of the total 1830 gram negative bacilli which were isolated over a period of one and half year, from February 2010 to August 2011, from various clinical samples which were submitted to the microbiology laboratory of the Sri Guru Ram Das Hospital, eighty six (4.70%) isolates belonged to the Citrobacter species, of which 58 were Citrobacter freundii and 28 were Citrobacter koseri. Sixty three (73.26%) out of 86 Citrobacter isolates were multi-drug resistant. There was a highly significant difference in the resistance of the Citrobacter isolates to all the antimicrobials including beta lactams, quinolones and aminoglycosides, among the hospital and outdoor isolates. ESBL production was seen in 61.64% of the hospital and in 30.70% of the outdoor isolates.