LAUSR

Background: With the advent of COVID19, Infection control practices were followed rampantly in all health institutions. Whether these practices were able to restrict Multi-drug resistant organisms (MDROs) was an interesting thought. So a retrospective study was conducted to find out the prevalence of the MDROs before and after April 2020. Methods: Total number of specimens sent for culture were reviewed from October 2019 till March 2020.The number of isolates were calculated and the number of MDROs were recognised. The same was done from April 2020 till August 2020 in a tertiary care hospital. Results: A total of 1328 specimens were received from October 2019 to March 2020.228 isolates were recovered from 221 culture positive specimens. 111 isolates from228 were MDROs giving a prevalence of 48%. 500 specimens were received from April 2020 to August 2020 and 100 isolates were recovered from 96 culture positive specimens. Out of 100 isolates 41 were MDROs giving a prevalence of 41%. There was a reduction of 7% in the prevalence of MDROs. Conclusions: Strict infection control practices like mask, social distancing and hand hygiene were followed after COVID19 outbreak. These practices seemed to have helped to reduce the prevalence of MDROs as seen in our study. If these are continued ever we may be able to control MDROs further.