Distribution of Virulence Genes and Their Association With Clinical Presentation of Urinary Tract Infection and Antimicrobial Resistance Among Uropathogenic Escherichia Coli Isolated From Pregnant Women

Urinary tract infection represents the most common bacterial infection in pregnancy and the third common cause of human infection after respiratory and intestinal infections. The infection can be life threatening and associated with serious complications. UTI can be associated with defined symptoms'symptomatic' or without symptoms 'asymptomatic'. Asymptomatic bacteriuria is defined as the presence of >100000 colony forming units/ml of urine of a single pathogen in two consecutive midstream clean catch urine specimen or on catheterization specimen from an individual without signs or symptoms associated with urinary or genital organs. Asymptomatic bacteriuria can lead to acute pyelonephritis in30%of pregnant women and complications such as early delivery, increase risk of hypertension, pre-eclampsia, low birth weight and postpartum endometritis. Ecoli accounts for most cases of symptomatic and asymptomatic bacteriuria in women, representing70 \_90 %of the cases. The important virulence factors of uropathogenic ecoli can be broadly divided into two groups :bacterial cell surface factors and secreted factors. The emergence of drug resistant microorganism among Uropathogenic Escherichia coli strains increases the serious threat to global health. Ecoli often acquired genes coding for antibiotic resistance, beta-lactamase enzymes are the most frequent and play a key role, conferring resistance of bacteria to beta lactam antibiotic group such as penicillin and cephalosporins. Therefore, knowledge regarding local prevalence of uropathogenic ecoli and antimicrobial resistance is essential for optimal management of UTI.