Acinetobacter baumannii is a ubiquitous pathogen that has emerged as a major cause of healthcare-associated infections at Ladoke Akintola University Teaching Hospital. Isolates were assayed according to standard protocol. The isolates were subjected to molecular techniques to detect blaOXA, blaTEM, blaCTX-M, and blaSHV genes in strains of the A. baumannii isolates. The prevalence of A. baumannii was 8.5% and was most prevalent among patients in the age group 51-60 (36%); the male patients (63.6%) were more infected than their female counterparts. Patients (72.7%) in the intensive care unit (ICU) were most infected with this organism. The isolates showed 100% resistance to both amikacin and ciprofloxacin and 90.9% to both ceftriaxone and ceftazidime, while resistance to the other antibiotics used in this study were: piperacillin (81.8%), imipenem (72.7%), gentamycin (72.2%), and meropenem (63.6%). None of the isolates was, however, resistant to colistin. PCR results showed that blaOXA, blaTEM, and blaCTX-M genes were positive in some isolates, while blaSHV was not detected in any of the isolates. This study has revealed that the strains of A. baumannii isolated are multiple drug resistant. Regular monitoring, judicious prescription, and early detection of resistance to these antibiotics are, therefore, necessary to check further dissemination of the organism.
Keywords: Acinetobacter baumannii; Nigeria; antibiotic-resistant genes.