Antimicrobial resistance is a global problem. Surveillance is one of the effective tools to address this multifaceted problem. In Bangladesh a countrywide antimicrobial resistance surveillance is ongoing since 2016-2020. The main objective of the surveillance is to know the sensitivity pattern of some common bacteria which will eventually help to formulate a standard treatment guideline for the clinician and to know the gravity of the AMR problem in Bangladesh. It is a case based surveillance conducted by Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control & Research (IEDCR) in nine sentinel sites where five types of clinical cases were selected according to case definition, tested in the microbiological department of the sites and ten types of bacteria were identified from six types of preselected specimens and their sensitivity test were done. All the laboratory works were done following the same standard operative procedure supplied by the AMR surveillance Reference laboratory at IEDCR. Total 19,263 samples were processed during the period of March 2017- March 2020 among which wound swab yielded highest growth (57%). E.coli was the highest (1717) isolated organism among the ten priority pathogens which showed highest sensitivity (91%) to Imipenem. Imipenem also showed higher sensitivity to other organisms like K. pneumoniae (77%), Salmonella species (100%), P. aeruginosa (53%) and Acb complex (29%). Third generation cephalosporin like ceftriaxone was found less than 50% sensitive to E.coli (37%) and K.pneumoniae (28%) although Salmonella spp. showed higher sensitivity (97%) to it. ACB complex, mostly isolated from ICU patients showed alarming resistance to all of the antibiotics and was less than 50% sensitive to even the highest sensitive antibiotic Imipenem (29%). Salmonella spp. isolated from blood showed higher susceptibility to most of the antibiotics except ciprofloxacin (7%). The result of the surveillance representing whole country is surely alarming as most of the bacteria are highly resistant to the commonly used as well some of the reserve group of antibiotics. So concerted effort should be taken from all concerned to curb the problem immediately.

Kala-azar is a tropical disease. There are an estimated 500,000 new cases of VL and more than 50,000 deaths from the diseases each year. The majority (>90%) of cases occur in just six countries like Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sudan, Ethiopia and Brazil. Severe VL epidemics have been reported in the past. Since 1990, South Asia has experienced a resurgence of the lethal parasitic disease visceral leishmaniasis (VL). The disease has been reported from 109 districts of three countries. An estimated 190 million people are at risk of infection. The actual incidence rate of the disease is estimated to be about 8-10 times higher than the reported one in all three countries. There is an increasing trend of VL cases in India and fluctuating trends were found in Nepal and Bangladesh. Multi centric studies were conducted in Bangladesh, India and Nepal and major findings were that the current burden of disease is 20 times higher than the elimination target in 2010/2015. Kala-azar has appeared to have spread along the courses of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers. In these early outbreaks, the case-fatality rate was reported to be >95 percent, with community-wide mortality rates of >25 percent. This review has focused on the clinical burden of kala-azar in Bangladesh. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jsf.v10i2.17960 J Sci Found, 2012;10(2):70-79