المجلة الدولية للعلوم والتقنية

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are among the commonest infections both in community and hospitals that showed emergence of multi drug resistant (MDR) Escherichia coli (E. coli) which is challenging UTI treatment. This study aimed to detect the prevalence of E. coli and antibioticsusceptibility patternfrom those patients suspected with urinary tract infection attending Tobruk medical center, Tobruk, Libya. A total of 3067 urine samples were collected and processed according to standard microbiological methods for the isolation and identification of E. coli. Antibacterial susceptibility pattern of the isolates was determined using Kirby-Bauer’s disk diffusion technique. The results revealed that 698samples (22%) out of the 3067 collected samples were positive for E. coli with high prevalence among the female patients 581 (83.2%) compared to the male patients 117 (16.8%). The antibiotic susceptibility pattern showed that the isolated bacteria is resistant to used antibiotics by 56.7%.The E. coli isolates demonstrated higher resistant in male samples (65.0%) than females (55.1%). The E. coli isolates demonstrated higher resistance to Ampicillin (100%) followed by Amickan (90.3%) then Oxacillin (75%) while those isolates recorded the lowest resistance to Gentamicin (32.1%) and Nitrofurantoin (59.1%). The study indicated the need for physicians to prescribed antibiotics to patients following standard antibacterial susceptibility testing.