Florence Adenike BAMIGBOLA2024-05-212024-05-212022-12Kate TurabianPhDhttps://repository.lcu.edu.ng/handle/123456789/178Epidemiological data of SARS-C0V-2 indicated that bacterial and fungal complications increased mortality rate and decreased clearance rate of the virus therefore antimicrobial drugs were administered to patients with this disease without susceptibility testing. This study sought to identify co-infecting pathogen(s), determine their antimicrobial resistant pattern, detect macrolide, azole and polyene resistant genes in the identified pathogen(s) from confirmed SARS-CoV-2 individual in Oyo State, Nigeria. Nasopharyngeal samples were collected from 400 symptomatic and asymptomatic infected adults; structured questionnaires were administered to determine predisposing factors to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Isolates were obtained by standard microbiological methods, identified using API 20E, VITEK 2.0 ID cards and MALDITOF MS VITEK. Kirby Bauer disc diffusion methods and VITEK 2.0 AST card kits were used to determine antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Resistant genes in the isolates were amplified using Polymerase Chain Reaction with specific primers, genes, detection was done by Agarose Gel Electrophoresis. Bacterial and fungal coinfection among SAR-CoV-2 infected individuals were detected (7.3%). Many of the identified bacteria were in family of Enterobacteriaceae, Loddermyces elongisporous (39.0%) was the most fungi isolated followed by Aspergillus flavus 17.5%). The Gram positive bacteria isolated were more resistant (66.6%) to azithromycin) used for palliative treatment of COVID-19 cases. However, bacterial isolates show significant higher susceptibility (89.0%) to quinolones. Only mefA (36.8%) and ermB (26.3%) genes were detected in the bacterial isolates and were more in Gram positive bacteria and no mphA gene was detected. Among fungal isolates, ERG 11 gene was detected among the Loddermyces elongisporous, FKS gene was detected in Aspergillus niger while CPY gene was present in Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus flavus. Some of the microbial isolates detected in SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals were multidrug resistant with resistant to Azithromycin inclusive. This finding is of great health concern and should be further looked into. Keywords: SARS-CoV-2, Bacterial and Fungal co-infection, MALDITOF MS VITEK and Resistant genes. Word Count: 294enThesis