Abstract

PREVALENCE AND ANTIMICROBIAL SUSCEPTIBILTY OF MYCOPLASMA HOMINIS AND UREAPLASMA UREALYTICUM IN PREGNANT AND NON-PREGNANT WOMEN IN PARTS OF ENUGU STATE, NIGERIA

*Mbah-Omeje K. N., Ezeonu I. M., Ugwu C. C., Ezugwu R. I. and Iloputaife E. J.

ABSTRACT

Mycoplasma hominis and Ureaplasma urealyticum are human pathogens considered as genital mycoplasmas, because infection often occurs through sexual contact. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence and antimicrobial resistance patterns of M. hominis and U. urealyticum from pregnant and non-pregnant women. A total of 614 high vaginal swab (HVS) samples collected from 300 pregnant and 314 non pregnant women in higher institutions were examined. M. hominis and U. urealyticum were isolated using mycoplasma agar, A7 agar, and urea-arginine LYO2 broth (while confirmation was done using IST2 kit). M. hominis and U. urealyticum were characterized and identified by standard methods including digitonin test, arginine, urea and glucose hydrolysis. Isolates were tested for susceptibility/resistance to different antibiotics using Mycoplasma IST2 kit. A total of 212 (35.4%) M. hominis and 377(61.4%) U. urealyticum isolates were recovered from the 614 HVS samples. Among the 300 pregnant women examined, M. hominis was recovered from 75(25%) samples while U. urealyticum was recovered from 175(58%) samples. However, actual infection, indicated by presence of >104 cells of the organism was recovered in 70(23.3%) and 170(46%) women for M. hominis and U. urealyticum respectively. For non-pregnant women, on the other, M. hominis and U. urealyticum were recovered from 142(45.2%) and 202(64.35%) of the women respectively. Concomitant infection with both organisms were recovered in 40(7%) of the pregnant women and 70(11.4%) of non-pregnant women. Infection with both organisms was significantly (p< 0.05) higher in non-pregnant women than pregnant women. A higher proportion of the infected pregnant and non-pregnant women were asymptomatic. There was significant association between infection and symptoms such as offensive discharge, pruritis and pain during sex for both organisms. M. hominis and U. urealyticum isolates exhibited a high rate of sensitivity to erythromycin (96%) and ciprofloxacin (100%) while the most resisted antibiotics were josamycin (100%) and pristinamycin (100%). Some M. hominis and U. urealyticum isolates exhibited a high rate of resistance to most antibiotics tested; 14.2% of M. hominis were resistant to 7 antibiotics while 4.9% of U. urealyticum were resistant to 8 antibiotics tested. The results from this study show that there is high prevalence of M. hominis and U. urealyticum in the study area and that the two organisms are sensitive to available antibiotics.

Keywords: M. hominis and U. urealyticum.