Prevalence and antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of staphylococci and streptococci causing ocular infections from a tertiary eye care hospital, South India.

Gram positive cocci viz., streptococci and staphylococci are found to be more predominant among ocular infections. Treatment of bacterial eye infections may engross empirical therapy with topical ophthalmic broad spectrum antibiotic formulations which is a prevailing practice among ophthalmologists. Ocular samples were collected from patients attending a tertiary eye care hospital, Coimbatore, south India from a total of 1802 ocular samples viz., Gram positive cocci (n=329), other bacteria & actinomycetes (n=561) and fungi (n=716), were isolated. Out of 329 Gram positive cocci, a total of 200 isolates viz., Streptococcus pneumoniae (n=76), coagulase negative staphylococci (CoNs) (n=49), Staphylococcus aureus (n=40), S. viridans (n=33) and S. pyogenes (n=2). The results revealed that the patients belonging to the age group between 60-80 years were most affected and male preponderance was observed. The isolates were subjected to antibiogram analysis with 15 different antibiotics according to the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines. Antibiotic viz., ampicillin, ofloxacin, gatifloxacin, levofloxacin, cefotaxime, cefazolin, piperacillin and vancomycin were found to effective against Gram positive cocci ocular infections.