Ekwealor Chito Clare^1,, Ndulue Ginika Perpetua¹, Ike Ndubisi Shedrack¹, Anaukwu Chikaodili Gladys¹, Anakwenze Vivian Nonyelum¹, Ezeokoli Chukwuebuka Mary-Vin¹

Infections by drug resistant Escherichia coli cause significant morbidity and mortality especially in developing countries. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence and antibiotic resistant pattern of Escherichia coli among children from selected hospitals in Onitsha, Anambra State, Nigeria. Two hundred and forty six stool samples were collected from diarrheal and non-diarrheal children aged ≤12 years attending outpatient clinic at St. Charles’ Borromeo Specialist Hospital and General Hospital, Onitsha using sterile screw capped bottles. Structured questionnaire was used to obtain demographic data of the children. With an applicator swab, stool samples were inoculated directly onto MacConkey agar and Eosin Methylene Blue (EMB) agar using streak plate method and incubated at 37^oC for 24 h. Colonies were identified based on their morphology, Gram’s stain and biochemical reactions and molecular characteristics. Antimicrobial susceptibility and resistance of the isolates was determined by standard disc diffusion method on Mueller Hinton agar. The gene encoding resistance for the highest resisted antibiotic was studied. The data obtained was statistically analyzed. Out of 246 samples collected from the hospitals, 206 (83.70 %) were positive for Escherichia coli. The molecular identification revealed the presence of Escherichia coli RPKN4. Prevalence of E. coli was higher in children with diarrhea (61.2%), males (54.9%), age group 6 – 9 (39.3%), those attending primary school (58.3%) and those whose mothers had tertiary education (74.8%). Prevalence of E. coli was statistically significant with gender (p = 0.001), age (p = 0.000) and child’s educational level (p=0.040). The E. coli isolates were highly resistant (45.63 %) to ampicillin, and had least resistance to gentamicin (0.49%) and nitrofurantoin (0.49%). All the isolates resistant to ampicillin were positive for bla TEM genes. The study showed high prevalence of Escherichia coli which are resistant to many of the antibiotics among children from the selected hospitals.

antibiotics, resistance, diarrhea, escherichia coli, prevalence, ampicillin