Prevalence and antibiogram of Burkholderia species isolated from a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

The genus which was earlier considered as a soil saprophyte, is now gaining importance as a human pathogen. The pathogenic species include , , , and . Ongoing studies on spp. have resulted in the isolation of newer subspecies from human samples. The study was undertaken to know the prevalence of spp among the clinical isolates in our hospital setup, to identify and also to evaluate their antibiogram. Various clinical samples from patients were analysed along with their demographic data. All the specimens were processed according to the standard microbiology procedures. In a total of 4115 culture positive samples, 951 (23.11%) were identified as Non Fermenting Gram Negative Bacilli (NFGNB). 30 (3.2%) of these NFGNB were identified as spp. with an overall prevalence rate of 0.72%. 12 (40%) were further identified as and 18 (60%) as complex. 76.7% of the patients were above 40 years and a male preponderance was also observed (80%). Diabetes mellitus was found to be the major risk factor (60%) and fever was the commonest presentation (53.3%). Antibiotic sensitivity testing showed highest sensitivity to minocycline and cotrimoxazole and the least to imipenam. This study provides a baseline data of the present scenario of infections in our hospital. A continuing study will be beneficial in identifying a number of cases as this is a grossly under-reported organism.