The Antibiotic Resistance Profiling of Bacteria Isolated from Hospital Wastewater in Multan

Resistance against antibiotics mainly due to their misuse and overuse is an emerging health issue, worldwide. Antibiotics release active antibiotic residues in the environment during their production. Bacteria encounter these active antibiotic residues and the genes present in them; resultantly, they acquire resistance against antibiotics. The current study was conducted to determine the prevalence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacterial strains, isolated from hospital wastewater. Using standard procedures, bacterial resistance patterns against different classes of antibiotics were analysed and their species level identification was made. The disc diffusion method was used to determine the bacterial activity against antimicrobial agents. Clear zones were measured separately in millimeters around each disc. Five wastewater samples were collected from different drainage regions of hospitals situated in Multan. A total of 45 bacterial strains were isolated. Out of these 45 bacterial strains, 13 (29%) were found resistant against two or more than two classes of antibiotics. All the bacterial strains (100%) isolated from samples 2 and 3 were MDR. Twenty-five bacterial strains (55.5%) belonged to the Bacillus species and others belonged to Enterococcus species, Micrococcus species, Staphylococcus species, and Streptococcus species, respectively. The presence of resistant bacterial strains in hospital waste demands the availability of effectual treatment plants to treat the waste before it is disposed of into hospital waste lines.