ISOLATION AND ANTIBIOTIC SUSCEPTIBILITY OF ENTEROCOCCUS SPECIES FROM HUMAN STOOL AND ENVIRONMENTAL SAMPLES

The genus Enterococcus comprises of a group of Gram-positive, non-spore forming cocci, facultative anaerobes bacteria that undergo lactic acid fermentation found in the gastrointestinal tract of vertebrate and invertebrate animals, soil, surface waters, oceans and fermented food products. They can cause health care- associated infections such as Urinary tract infection, bacteremia, endocarditis, and wound infection. This study is aimed at the isolation, identification and antibiotic susceptibility of Enterococcus species from faucal and environmental samples obtained from Caleb University. Isolation was carried out on blood agar using standard methods and identification was done using conventional morphological and biochemical test. Antibiotic susceptibility test was carried out using disc diffusion method. A total of 34.1% of the samples used in this study were positive for Enterococcus species with occurrence of 52.4%, 12.5% and 28.6% in stool, soil and waste water samples, respectively and fifteen isolates comprising of 10(66.7%) Enterococcus faecalis and 5(33.3%) Enterococcus faecium were obtained. The
highest susceptibility of the Enterococcus species was recorded with Ciprofloxacin (100%), followed by Tetracycline (80%) and Vancomycin (53.3%) while 93.3%, 80%, 60%, 60% and 53.3% were resistant to Metronidazole, Ceftazidime, Ampicillin, Gentamicin and Erythromycin, respectively. The stool and environmental samples isolates had high level of resistance to antibiotics. Enterococci species were identified in this study, the resistance pattern showed by Enterococcus specie isolated in the study could be due to the ability of Enterococci to acquire resistance.