Various pathogens increasingly becoming resistant to critically important antimicrobials: ICMR report

Resistance of common pathogens more pronounced to fluoroquinolones, carbapenems, third generation cephalosporins classes of antibiotics.

The Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Surveillance Network of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) released its annual report for 2022. This is the sixth report which sheds light on the evolving landscape of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the country. 

The analysis showed a trend of declining susceptibility towards critically important antimicrobials (CIA). CIAs and Highest Priority Critically Important Antimicrobials (HPCIA) are the categories of antimicrobial agents identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) based on their importance in human medicine and the urgency to preserve their effectiveness. 

The report is based on the analysis of 107,053 culture-positive isolates, which were sourced from 21 tertiary care hospitals as participating centres and obtained from different specimen types such as blood, urine, superficial infections, deep infections, sterile sites, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and faeces. 

Escherichia coli was identified as the most commonly occurring pathogen, followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii and Staphylococcus aureus. All these isolates were analysed across different clinical settings, including out-patient departments (OPD), wards and intensive care units (ICU).