Akortha, E.E., Aluyi, H.S.A. and K.E. Enerijiofi
In order to investigate the mechanism of antibiotic resistance of some bacterial pathogens from the sputum of pneumonia patients, 160 sputum samples were collected from patients within 1-30 years of age attending the outpatients department of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin City. 101 (63.1%) out of this number gave growth for bacterial pathogens. The bacteria isolated included Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus spp., Klebsiella pneumoniae, Streptococcus viridans and Moraxella catarrhalis. The highest in occurrence was S. viridians (51.5%) and the least was Staphylococcus spp (2.9%). The age group 1-5 years had the highest bacterial count (69.9%) while age group 21-25 years had the least count (50%). The isolates were highly resistant to the various antibiotics used. The resistance rate was highest for streptomycin (94.1%) and lowest for gentamycin (20.8%). 89(88.1%) out of the total number, showed the presence of amoxicillin resistance (amxr ) gene. When these resistant isolates were subjected to curing in the presence of 10% sodium dodecyl sulfate, 73(82.01%) lost their amxr gene which showed that this gene was probably located on a plasmid in these strains.
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