Abstract

Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) is considered as one of the major bacteria causing urinary tract infections (UTIs) affecting millions of people worldwide. UPEC rates of high resistance towards antibiotics have increased dramatically in recent years and made treatment difficult in Bangladesh. The study intended to determine the prevalence and antibiotic resistance pattern of Escherichia coli from suspected urinary tract infections in Bangladeshi patients. A single cross-sectional retrospective observation was carried out in the Department of Microbiology at the Popular Diagnostic Centre, Mymensingh city, Bangladesh from August 2019 to August 2020. We collected data on urine culture from diagnostic reports of 4000 patients from which positive urine culture data were analyzed using SPSS software. During the study period, 453 positive urine cultures were identified from 4000 suspected UTI patients. Among them, 300 (66.2%) were female and 153 (33.8%) were male with their mean age of 45.50(47.94 for male and 44.27 for female). According to the findings, Escherichia coli was the only uropathogenic bacterial species found in the patient's urine culture. The highest antimicrobial resistance was seen among patients aged between 41 and 50 years. In an antimicrobial susceptibility test, 99% of isolates were resistant to at least one antibiotic, and 92% were multidrug-resistant (≥3 classes).

Key words: Keywords: Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC), Antibiotic susceptibility test (AST), Urinary tract infections (UTI), Multidrug-resistance (MDR).