Resistance of Staphylococcus aureus against commonly antimicrobial agents in Taiwan

Objectives: As a consequence of abuse consumption of antibiotic, the biofims colonized to human is increasing towards resistance. This study is conducted to evaluate the resistant rate of commonly antibiotics used in Taiwan against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus).

Methods: A total of 200 strains of S. aurous of clinical isolates from Hospital of Kaohsiung Medical University (Kaohsiung, Taiwan) were tested for their antimicrobial susceptibility against 10 commonly used antibiotics using Epsilometer AB Biodisk Test (E-Test).

Results: The resistant rates of S. aureus from 200 strains were found to be 100% against metronidazole, 93% to azithromycin, 90% to Amoxicillin and ampicillin, 59% to clindamycin, 48% to doxycycline, 35% to cephalothin, 32% to ciprofloxacin, 31% to cefpirome and 21% to minocycline.

Conclusions: This preliminary report indicated a highly resistant rate of S. aureus was existing against most of the commonly prescribed antibiotics in Taiwan.  It is worth to note that there is no significant difference in resistant rate between 4^th (32% to cefpirome) and 1^st (35% to cephalothin) generation of cephalosporin.  This is a particularly concerning because this organism is virulent and versatile.  Further study is undergoing to investigate a larger sample size of oral isolates of Methicillin-Resistant S. aureus against more other antibiotics including amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, vancomycin and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole.