Characterization of Bacteriological Isolates from Patients and Environment Samples of Burn Ward: A Study from a Tertiary Care Hospital of India.

OBJECTIVE Source of infection in a burn patient is from the patient's own flora, contaminated environmental surfaces and from health care workers. Insufficiently disinfected hospital environmental surface provides a niche for multidrug resistant bacteria. This study was done to assess the bacteriological profile of the pathogens from burn wound and the surrounding environmental areas. METHOD During 6 months wound swabs from burn patients were collected on admission (after 48 hours of admission), on day 5 and then weekly. Environmental samples were also collected from burn ward and studied for the bacteriological and anti-microgram profiles. RESULTS Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Acinetobacter baumannii were the major bacterial isolates from the woundswabs and from theenvironmental samples. ESBL was detected in 56.6% of our Enterobacteriaceae isolates. The environmental sites from which these bacterial isolates were found were nursing counter, sink, dressing trolley, medicine locker and patient's bed. The percentage of MRSA has decreased from 50 to 5% and there is increased role of Enterococci species causing infections (13.63%). CONCLUSIONS In this study, there appears that the colonizers of the environment may play a role in causationof infection in burn patients.In burns ward, rigorous implementation of infection control program should be warranted, which includes and hygiene and use of personal protective equipment, environmental disinfection, cohort nursing care and antibiotics stewardship programme.