Prevalence of Bacterial Contamination and Antimicrobial Susceptibility Pattern among Blood and Blood Components collected with and without diverging method at Armed Forces Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract Background: Transfusion of bacterial contaminated blood and blood components could be a cause of morbidity and mortality. Understanding the mechanism of blood contamination is important in developing infection control strategy.Methods: A comparative cross-sectional study was done 376 blood and blood components collected with and without diverging method in Armed Forces Comprehensive Specialized Hospital. Then, Culturing of collected blood and blood components were inoculated in broth then subcultured on agar plate. And then, the drugs sensitivity test was done for each isolate. Bivariate analysis and multivariate logistic regression were used to infer association.Results: The overall prevalence of bacterial contamination among blood and blood components were 17 (4.5%). The prevalence of bacterial contamination of blood and blood components collected with the non-diverging and diverging method was 14 (7.4%) and 3 (1.6 %) respectively with P value of 0.05. Staphylococcus epidermidis were the most dominate isolates. Gram positive isolates showed more than 74% sensitive for antibiotics and also became more than 9% resistant. Most gram negative isolates became sensitive but Pseudomonas aeruginosa showed resistant for Gentamicin. 29.4% (n= 5/17) isolated bacteria were multidrug resistant.Conclusion: There was a difference between bacterial contamination in blood and blood components collected between diverging and non-diverging blood collection methods.