Prevalence of antibiotic resistance in East African Hospitals
Summary
Introduction: Antibiotic resistance is a global burden, besides it is worse in low and middle-income countries where infectious diseases are still on the rise. This is occasioned by misuse of antibiotics.
Methods: We did a systematic literature review to assess the prevalence of antibiotic resistance in major hospitals within the East African region.
Results: 20 articles were included in this review; they were published between 1997 and 2013. Of the 20 articles, 9 (45%) from Tanzania, 6 (30%) were from Kenya, 4 (20%), 1 (5%) from Uganda and Rwanda respectively. Overall resistance rates varied in different studies. Prevalence for MRSA ranged from 0.4% to 84.1% as shown in table 1 while that of ESBL ranged from 9.9% to 81.9%
Conclusion: Antimicrobial resistance is high in most major hospitals in East Africa