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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global health issue that plays a significant role in morbidity and mortality, especially in immunocompromised patients. It also becomes a serious threat to the successful treatment of many bacterial infections. The widespread and irrelevant use of antibiotics in hospitals and local clinics is the leading cause of AMR.
COVID-19 infections have far exceeded bacterial co-infection and mortality rates compared to other common respiratory viral infections [1]. The co-infection of SARS-CoV-2 with other microbes, mainly bacteria and fungus, is a determining factor in COVID-19 development, making diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis more complicated. In individuals with COVID-19, bacterial co-infection has been linked to disease progression and prognosis. This scenario increases the need for critical care units, antibiotic therapy, and mortality [2]. Unfortunately, due to their widespread use, human may face the emergence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) pathogens leading to reduced efficacy of most potent antimicrobials [2][3]. AMR is a global problem that poses a severe threat to the success of treating a wide range of bacterial infections and affects many hospitalised patients, and most probably becomes a serious threat to the patients who are admitted to the SICUs [4][5].
Antibiotics are the most commonly prescribed drugs among hospitalised patients, especially in SICUs. It is imperative to use the appropriate antibiotics in intensive care units with few prescriptions as an acceptable quality of care, infection control, cost reduction, and length of hospital stay [15][16][17]. Patients admitted in the SICU are critically ill requiring prescribed the medicine without waiting for the culture reports that give information about the antimicrobial resistance pattern of the suspected organism for a specific cause [18][19]. In terms of the culture reports, there is no possibility to wait for reports because these take a minimum of 48 h, and as a result antibiotic resistance occurs in patients admitted to the SICUs [20]. The current study was conducted among COVID-19 patients admitted in SICUs of tertiary care hospitals, requiring monitoring and special care to analyse the antibiotics utilisation pattern and determine the prevalence of AMR.
A previous study on microbial infection and antibiotic resistance patterns in COVID-19 patients admitted in SICUs of tertiary care hospitals showed that Pseudomonas was the most common organism identified in the medical ICU, followed by Klebsiella pneumonia [21]. A study on the prevalence of microorganisms and bacterial resistance in the SICU of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University of Bangladesh showed that the maximum identified organism was Acetobacter. (45.4%), of P. aeruginosa (32.2%), Proteus (11%), Klebsiella pneumoniae 10%, and E. coli (3%) were identified [22]. A study by Mehta et al., 2015 on ICU patients revealed that the Pseudomonas spp. (29.1%) was the most common organism, followed by Acinetobacter spp. (27.5%) [16]. Another previous analysis of AST and bacteriology profile on patients at tertiary care hospitals in Ahmadabad showed that Acinetobacter spp. [30.9%] was the most common organism, after coming Klebsiella spp. (29.8%) and P. aeruginosa (22.9%) [17]. However, in the current study, the most common isolated organism was E. coli (38%), followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae (24%), P. aeruginosa (14%). While Streptococcus agalactiae, Citrobacter freundii, Serratia liqeuficiens, and Stenotrophomonas maltophilla were 1.7%, 1.1%, 1.1% and 1.4%, respectively.