Moses Ocan¹*, Benjamin Tumushabe², Hellen Nakawunde², Jemmico Droma² Geoffrey Waiswa², Kalori Kirya², Hannington Baluku² and Wilson M Rwandembo⁴

¹Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, College of Health Sciences, Makerere University, Uganda
²Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda
³Department of Medical Microbiology, College of Health Sciences, Makerere University, Uganda
⁴Uganda Institute of Allied Health and Management Sciences, Uganda

*Corresponding Author: Moses Ocan, Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, College of Health Sciences, Makerere University.

Received: April 16, 2018; Published: May 11, 2018

Citation: Moses Ocan., et al. “Prevalence and Antifungal Susceptibility of Vaginal Candida albicans among Pregnant Women Attending Arua Regional Referral Hospital, Westnile Region of Uganda”. Acta Scientific Microbiology 1.6 (2018).

Abstract

  Candida colonization’s occur globally with the risk and effects varying in different populations especially among the immunosuppressed and pregnant women. This study was thus conducted to establish the prevalence and antifungal susceptibility of Candida albicans among pregnant women seeking antenatal care at Arua Regional Referral Hospital (RRH) in West Nile region of Uganda. A cross-sectional study design was used and pregnant women attending antenatal care at Arua RRH recruited into the study using systematic random sampling. Interviewer administered questionnaire was used in data collection. High vaginal swab (HVS) samples were collected from each participant for laboratory analysis. Germ tube test was done to identify Candida albicans colonization of the vagina. Antifungal susceptibility of the Candida albicans isolates was determined using VITEK^® 2 Compact system. Candida colonization was present in a third, 35.5% (89/251) of the pregnant women who participated in the study. The majority, 27.5% (69/251) of theCandida colonization were caused by Candida albicans. Non-candida albicans species were present in 7.9% (20/251) of the pregnant women. Most, 51.4% (129/251) of the participants were 26-35 years of age. The majority, 91.2% (129/251) of the pregnant women reported to be aware of Candida. Fluconazole and Flucytosine each had C. albicans isolates that showed intermediate susceptibility. While all the 69 C. albicans isolates were susceptible to voriconazole, caspofungin and mucafungin antifungal agents. From the study, C. albicans isolates from pregnant women seeking antenatal care in Arua RRH are susceptible to common antifungal agents.

Keywords: Antifungal Agents; Candida Albicans; Susceptibility; Prevalence; Arua Regional Referral Hospital

Copyright: © 2018 Moses Ocan., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.