Prevalence of Escherichia coli among uropathogens in asymptomatic bacteriuria in a Nigerian Tertiary school in Jos, Nigeria

Objective: This study was carried out to determine the prevalence of Escherichia coli in asymptomatic bacteriuria among the students of Federal School of Medical Laboratory Technology, Jos. Methods: Mid-stream urine samples from 213 students who consented were collected, cultured, isolates identified and antibiotic susceptibility test was carried out according to standard microbiological protocols. Results: Of the 213 test samples screened, 9(4.2%) had asymptomatic bacteriuria. The study indicates that 9(4.2%) of the samples showed a significant count growth, 4(1.9%) had a non significant growth, while 199(93.4%) showed no growth. Of the 114 samples screened from female students, 9(7.9%) had significant bacteriuria, while of the 99 samples screened from the male counterparts non 0(0.0%) had significant bacteriuria. The bacterial isolates recovered in this study were Escherichia coli which had the highest with 6(66.7%) while Klebsiella species had the lowest with 3(33.3%).The distribution of microbial isolates recovered from the study shows that Escherichia coli had the highest prevalence of 6(60.0%), followed by Klebsiella species with 3(30.0%), while Candida species had 1(10.0%).The antibiotic susceptibility pattern for the Escherichia coli isolates reveals that all the 6(100%) isolates were susceptible to Nalidixic acid, Nitrofurantoin and Gentamycin, while Colistin Phosphate, Tetracycline and Streptomycin had 5(83.3%), 4(66.7%) and 1(16.7%) respectively. Ampicillin and Cotrimoxazole were resistant to all the Escherichia coli isolates. Conclusion: Asymptomatic bacteriuria was recorded among the females, therefore this call for the need to create more awareness on prevention and control measures for UTIs among females. The antibiogram profile suggested possibilities of drug abuse.