title: Septicaemia in a teaching hospital in Kuwait--I: Incidence and aetiology.
abstract: During a period of 18 months of study, blood cultures were performed on 3845 patients in hospital with clinical signs of infection. Among these, 214 (5.6%) episodes of septicaemia were diagnosed which correspond to 10.9/1000 hospital admissions. About 80% of the episodes were due to Gram-negative organisms, most common of which were Escherichia coli (19.6%), Salmonella spp (16.5%) and Klebsiella spp (15.1%). Gram-positive organisms implicated in 20% of episodes were mainly Staphylococcus aureus (9.3%) and enterococci (4.9%). Of all the septicaemias 62.0% were community-acquired with Salmonella spp. being the organism most commonly implicated. Hospital-acquired infections were mainly due to Serratia spp, Pseudomonas spp and Flavobacterium spp. The antibiotic resistance pattern of the organisms showed that hospital-acquired organisms had relatively high resistance to most antibiotics as compared with community-acquired organisms.
mesh_terms: D003428:Cross Infection / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology / Q000382:microbiology; D004352:Drug Resistance, Microbial; D004756:Enterobacteriaceae Infections / Q000453:epidemiology; D005417:Flavobacterium; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans; D007730:Kuwait; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D011552:Pseudomonas Infections / Q000453:epidemiology; D018805:Sepsis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D013203:Staphylococcal Infections / Q000453:epidemiology; D013290:Streptococcal Infections / Q000453:epidemiology