Abstract: Staphylococcus aureus is one of the leading etiological agents of causing severe skin infections including bacteremia, cellulitis, and different kind of infections. This study was performed to check the drug susceptibility patterns of the phenotypically characterized S. aureus isolates collected from some popular diagnostic centers of Dhaka city. A total of 175 non-duplicate isolates were collected from various patients having different age groups and gender. The microorganisms obtained from diverse specimens (i.e. blood, urine, pus, sputum, ear, breast, nipple, catheter, tracheal aspirate) were identified by several phenotypic and biochemical tests. Antibiotic resistance patterns for 22 different antibiotics were evaluated by the Agar-disc-diffusion method to understand antibiotic susceptibility of the isolates. Out of 175, a total of 110 samples were identified as S. aureus isolates. The female patients (58%) were likely to be more susceptible to staphylococcal infection than their male counterparts (42%). Of the 110 isolates, most of them were identified as Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR). The highest resistance was recorded against Cefixime (100%), Azithromycin (83.7%), Ciprofloxacin (71%), Levofloxacin (63.6%), and Ceftriaxone (61.8%). Resistance levels of S. aureus against other antibiotics were also worrisome. This study highlighted the need for frequent surveillance of antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of Staphylococcus aureus with a view of selecting accurate antibiotic therapy in order to avoid the development of drug resistance. However, molecular studies are recommended for developing our current findings.

Keywords: Staphylococcus aureus, Skin infections, Multidrug-resistant, Therapy.

| DOI: 10.17148/IARJSET.2020.7618