This study was designed to bring to the fore the prevalent causative agents of urinary tract infections (UTIs) and their antibiotic susceptibility patterns in Nigeria, using patients attending University of Abuja Teaching Hospital (UATH) as a case study. Using microbiological/biochemical methods, prevalence of uropathogens amongst sexes, was compared between 2010 and 2015. Bacterial counts (105/ml) in the urine was used as quantitative standard and the total number of patients in the study was 214 (166 females and 48 males). The prevalence of UTIs in samples collected from 214 patients between 2010 and 2015 shows that Escherichia coli (57.5%) was the most prevalent organism causing UTIs, followed by Klebsiella species (18.5%), Staphylococcus aureus (11.2%) and Proteus species (12.4%). Antibiotics used include nitrofurantoin, ofloxacin, nalidixic acid, amoxicillin, gentamicin, tetracycline, levofloxacin, and augumentin, with bacterial causing UTI displaying greatest resistance to tetracycline and nitrofurantoin the highest sensitivity. This study indicates most of the uropathogens are still susceptible to antibiotics commonly used in the hospital. However, E. coli exhibited resistance to amoxicillin. The development of antimicrobials for prevention and treatment of infections should be tackled from a worldwide understanding of infection patterns so as to overcome the increasing level of superbugs in general and UTIs in particular.

 

Key words: Urinary tract infections, microbial resistance, adaptive immune response.