Bacterial Contamination of Blood and Blood Products at Mbarara Regional
Blood Bank in Rural South Western Uganda
208
found in these antibiotics, rendering the antibiotics inef-
fective. In Ghana, it was reported that all Gram-positive
isolates were resistant to cefuroxime, penicillin, ampicil-
lin, and cotrimoxazole but sensitive to cefotoxime, tetra-
cycline, erythromycin, and gentamycin [2,8]. Similarly,
all the Gram-negative organisms isolated were resistant
to cefotoxime (except Y. enterocolitica), tetracycline,
ampicillin, cefuroxime, cotrimoxazole, and chloram-
phenicol but sensitive to amikacin and gentamycin. A
study in Nigeria reported resistance to antibiotics tested
(ampicillin, cotrimoxazile, erythromycin, penicillin, tet-
racycline, rifampicin) except gentamycin, and ceftri-
oxone that ranged from 50% to 100% [3].
One possible explanation for the high resistance of
donor blood isolates may be associated with the ease of
procuring antibiotics over the counter in Uganda, self
medication, and shortfalls in infection control [16]. An-
other possible cause of high resistance could be due to
misuse of antibiotics by cattle farmers, Amanya, (unpub-
lished) reported bacterial resistance to antibiotics on
bacteria isolated from milk which included S. aureus,
Klebsiella pneumonia, S. agalactiae, and E. coli which
showed resistance to the commonly used antibiotics in-
cluding tetracycline, gentamycin and penicillin. This can
imply that people consuming milk and milk products
may acquire bacterial strains from milk and milk prod-
ucts that are already resistant to the commonly used anti-
biotics.
5. Conclusion
Bacterial contamination of blood was found to be 3.5%.
Staphylococcus aureus was found to be the major con-
taminant with 17 out of 18 organisms isolated (94.4%)
while Streptococcus viridans contributed 1/18 (5.6%).
The isolates are known to be part of the skin normal flora.
The organisms showed increased resistance to penicillin
and cloxacillin but susceptible to ampicillin, chloram-
phenicol, erythromycin and ciprofloxacin.
6. Recommendation
While the Mbarara Regional Blood Bank is doing a
commendable job in provision of safe blood and blood
products emphasis should be put on ensuring proper dis-
infectio n o f phlebotomy site s .
Policy makers should ensure emphasis of blood safety
during phlebotomy by providing quality disinfectants.
Routine antibiotic susceptibility testing is recommended
in all cases of post-transfusion sepsis.
7. Acknowledgements
We appreciate the financial, material and moral support
offered to us by Mbarara University of Science and
Technology, Department of Microbiology and; Epicen-
tre Mbarara Research Base. Special thanks to Dr. At-
wine Daniel of Epicentre for the support towards the data
analysis of our study .
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