Abstract

Nosocomial infections are one of the occupational biohazards that affect the health of individuals with or without predisposing factors. Staphylococcus aureus is associated with significantly higher mortality and is associated with community-acquired serious nosocomial infections because strains generally show multiple drug resistance, which limits treatment possibilities. A total of 1800 patients in the state of Andhra Pradesh were screened for the presence of Staphylococcus species and were tested for antibiotic resistance. The results indicated that among ten antibiotics used in the present study, Amikacin and Azithromycin should be the drug of choice to treat S. aureus infection. It was observed that the resistance of most of the antibiotics tested showed increased resistance with increasing age. These results suggest that clinicians should consider age as an important factor while prescribing these antibiotics.

Key words: Nosocomial, antibiotic resistance, Staphylococcus aureus.