Journal of Antimicrobial Agents

Tuberculosis is dreadful disease which cause millions of deaths worldwide each year. The emergence of multidrug resistant strains makes situation ever worse. The search for new drugs used for therapies is enhanced which results in the discovery of some bioactive agents from micro algae which manifest antibacterial activities against these multidrug resistant strains. Many bioactive compounds like unsaturated fatty acids, phenols, polysaccharides, terpenes, lipids, sterols and phenolic compounds have been extracted from different microalgae e.g. I. galbana, C. friebergensis, C. marina, T. gracilis using different solvents like ethanol, chloroform, hexane crude extracts, n-butanol, methane and water have shown to present anti-mycobacterial activities. Present studies show that unsaturated fatty acids show antibacterial activity against multidrug resistance mycobacterium tuberculosis and can be used as alternative to ancient drugs for treatment of tuberculosis.

Recently, natural products have been evaluated as sources of antimicrobial agents with efficacies against a variety of micro-organisms. This study described the antibacterial activity of anthocyanins extracted from red sorghum bran on selected bacteria. The anthocyanins extracted by using acidified ethanol have shown highest antibacterial activity compared to methanol extracts. Among the selected bacterial cultures, the highest antibacterial activity was recorded against Staphylococcus aureus. Moderate antifungal activity was observed against Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus fumigates.

The major groups of seaweed such as Padina pavonica and Dictyota dichotoma in Brown algae, Halimeda macroloba and Chaetomorpha antennina in green algae and the Red algae Gracilaria parvispora were examined for the presence of beneficial compounds and activity in symbiotically associated bacteria. Totally 40 isolated colonies were obtained and 10 physically similar strains were randomly selected and evaluate their antibacterial activity against human pathogen using the disc diffusion method. The strain A1 and D2 show the potential activity against all the pathogen, remarkably strain D2 had 15mm of inhibition zone against Proteus mirabilis, while A1 shows 13mm inhibition in Bacillus cereus and Proteus mirabilis. The GC-MS analysis on ethyl acetate extract of Strain A1 and D2 shows the presence of antimicrobial bioactive compounds. Based on the 16S rRNA gene sequences the isolates A1 and D2 were identical to Vibrio harveyi (KU197879.1) and Photobacterium rosenbergii (MN339950.1) respectively.

Introduction: Antimicrobial resistance has been a global issue past many decades and mortality rate in regards to it is multiplying drastically every other day.
De-escalation of antibiotic therapy is a measure to overcome this issue before it is too late. Having said this, many measures have been enforced by the Ministry
of Health, Malaysia to actively cultivate the culture of antimicrobial stewardship including de-escalation of therapy among the clinicians.
Method: This was a retrospective study from October 2019 to October 2020 involving patients aged 18 years and above admitted to the intensive care unit for
ventilator support and started on broader spectrum of antibiotics subsequently de-escalated to narrower spectrum of antibiotics upon 72 hours review by the
AMS team. The multiple outcomes measured in this study are sepsis free after treatment, the survival upon discharge, readmission within 30 days and also cost
savings associated with the antibiotics only.
Results: A total of 32 patients were recruited and eligible to be part of this study. Among the 32 patients, 29 (90.6%) of them presented with sepsis upon
admission whereas 3 (9.4%) patients were sepsis free. Nevertheless, about 21 (65.6%) patients were sepsis free after being treated in ICU and remaining 11
(34.4%) were still treated as sepsis. Majority of the study population survived upon discharge precisely 22 patients (68.8%). All 22 patients had no history of
readmission within 30 days after being discharge. Only 1 patient died additionally post 30 days from the date of discharge accumulating the total number of
fatalities up to 11 (34.4%). The total cost savings was approximately 52.7% which is equivalent to MYR 5,174.47.
Conclusion: It can be concluded that de-escalation of antibiotics therapy is not associated with increased risk of mortality despite no positive culture even in
critically ill patients

Background: Mobile phones could be reservoirs of a wide variety of bacterial species/infections. The Community-acquired infections caused by bacteria have increased and thus there are public health concerns of mobile phone usage. The study was aimed at determining the hand-phone hygiene practices among Pharmacy students, incidence and antibiogram of bacterial contaminants of their mobile phones of Pharmacy students . Method: A pretested, structured, self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data on the participant’s demographics, knowledge, attitude and practice of hand-phone hygiene practices. The data collected were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS-20) and presented as frequency and percentages response. Swabs of 240 students’ mobile phones were taken; cultivated and bacterial isolates obtained were identified using standard microbiological methods. Antibiotic susceptibility studies were also done on the prevalent bacterial species using Kirby- Bauer disc method. Result: There were 95 (39.6%) males and 145 (60.4%) females that participated in the study. Majority of the students 215 (89.6 %) use their phones when eating while few 25 (12.9 %) do not.. Most of the respondents 211 (87.91 %) knew that their mobile phones can serve as a means of infection transmission. However, only 50% of the respondents admitted cleaning their phones regularly. A total of 162 bacterial isolates were obtained from mobile phones sampled. Amongst the bacteria species were Staphylococcus aureus 25%, Klebsiella Pneumonia 20%, Escherichia coli 19%, Shigella spp 16%, Pseudomonas aeruginosa 16%, and Halo-tolerant Bacillius 6%. Conclusion: Mobile phones harbor arrays of bacterial species and can serve as a means of community- acquired infection transfer. The most prevalent bacteria specie amongst the students was Staphylococcus aureus and the hand and phone hygiene practices among the students were poor. Keywords: Mobile phones • Hand and phone hygiene • Antibiotic resistance • Bacteria species • Students