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Introduction: Neonatal mortality rate is highest in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia region. The present study is undertaken to find out prevalence of neonatal sepsis, recognize bacterial pathogens, neonatal risk factors, major symptoms, and their antibiotic sensitivity pattern in neonates in tertiary care hospital in southern Nepal. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in a tertiary care hospital from 2nd January 2017 to 20th February 2018 after approval (Ref: 125/2016-17). The sample size was calculated and convenience sampling was done. Data were collected from hospital records and microbiology laboratory and analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences. Results: Out of 1200 clinically suspected cases, early-onset neonatal sepsis was seen in 290 (79.89%). A positive culture was seen in 363 (30.25%) where maximum bacterial growth was found in 254 (69.98%) males. Preterm gestational age was seen in 265 (73%), low birth weight 284 (78.23%), a vaginal delivery mode in 279 (76.90%), and delivery in hospital in 232 (63.91%). Likewise, Staphylococcus aureus in 229 (63.08%) was found maximum followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae in 48(13.22%). The major symptom observed was Respiratory distress in 245 (20.41%) while culture positive was seen in poor cry in 94 (53.10%). Mainly effective antibiotics against Gram-positive and gram-negative organisms were Linezolid in 250 (94%) and Imipenem in 46 (90.19%), whereas Penicillin-G in 254 (99.21%) and Ampicillin in 38 (94.74%) found resistance towards organisms respectively. Conclusions: The high prevalence of neonatal sepsis in our study reflects a huge challenge to reduce the neonatal mortality rate to 12 by 2030 of Sustainable Development Goals. Bacterial isolates exhibited higher resistance towards commonly used antibiotics.

Objective: This study was designed to study the prevalence and antibiotic susceptibility patterns of Acinetobacter sp. as isolated from patients lodged in intensive care units (ICUs) of a tertiary care hospital, Ludhiana, Punjab, India.Methods: The clinical samples were simultaneously streaked on Blood agar and MacConkey agar. The identification of the bacterial isolates was carried out with the aid of Gram stain, motility test and along with a combination of other commonly employed biochemical tests. The antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) of all the bacterial isolates was carried out on Muller-Hinton agar through Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method.Results: Acinetobacter sp. formed a fair allowance contributing at 42% among all ICU culture positive samples. The respiratory tract samples had a major share at 63.15% for all samples attributed to be positive for Acinetobacter sp. nosocomial etiology. The antibiotic sensitivity pattern portrayed that more than 95% of Acinetobacter sp. isolates were multiple drug resistant (MDR) whereas >50% Acinetobacter sp. showed extensive drug resistant (XDR). The last resort for such Acinetobacter sp. nosocomial infections is left to colistin and polymyxin B.Conclusion: Acinetobacter sp. is a highly prevalent microorganism among ICU patients of Ludhiana, Punjab, India, while its potential to acquire resistance toward commonly used antibiotics represents it as a grave threat to the health-care industry, therefore signifying the need for its regular monitoring in the health-care setups.

Laboratory bench scaling was done and an average of 1.85 fold increase by Response Surface Methodology (RSM) optimization was obtained. It was found that the predicted value (4.96 IU/ml) obtained by RSM is in close accordance with observed activity 5.14 IU/ml. Endoglucanases are mainly induced by CMC while Wheat bran (natural substrate) exoglucanase is more active when induced by avicel and cellulose. Addition of substrate beyond a level caused inhibition of cellulase production. The molecular weight of protein as determined by SDS-PAGE is very similar to molecular weight of cellulase of Trichoderma viride (T. viride) cellulase and Trichoderma reesei (T. reesei) endoglucanase. T. reesei β-glucosidase has high enzymatic activity on CMC substrate when compared with T. viride β-glucosidase. Secondary structure analysed by using Circular Dichroism confirmed that composition of celluase system is very similar to other analysed species. The cellulase was found to be active in pH range of 4.8-5.5; while temperature range varied from 50°C to 70°C. Although the enzymatic activity produced by mutants were lesser than the parent, but in one case mutants of Trichoderma reesei’s BGL has shown higher activity on cellulose.