Bacteriology of neonatal septicaemia in a tertiary care hospital of northern India.

To study the bacteriology of neonatal septicaemia in a tertiary care hospital of Northern India we prospectively enrolled all the suspected cases of neonatal septicaemia, which were not on antimicrobials. One to two millilitre of blood from these neonates was cultured in brain heart infusion broth. Out of 728 cases, 346 (47.5%) were positive on blood culture. The most frequent offender was Klebsiella spp. (24.5%) followed by Enterobacter spp. (22.8%). There was an overall predominance of gram negative organisms. Coagulase negative staphylococci (CONS) were more frequently isolated (16.5%) than Staphylococcus aureus (14%). More than 89% of the Staphylococci isolated were resistant to penicillin. None were resistant to vancomycin or teicoplanin. More than 95% of enterobacteria were resistant to anti gram negative penicillin group of drugs and more than 40% were resistant to extended spectrum cephalosporins. Ciprofloxacin and amikacin resistance was infrequent. Thus, initial therapy in our hospital may be aimed at Gram negative organisms and amikacin and ciprofloxacin may be used as first line drugs.