Five-year surveillance of antimicrobial resistance patterns among blood culture isolates at the University Teaching Hospital, Kigali, Rwanda

A five-year surveillance study of 1,352 blood-culture isolates at the University Teaching Hospital in Kigali (2020–2024) shows a worrying rise in antimicrobial resistance, with Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, E. coli and Acinetobacter baumannii as the leading causes of bloodstream infections and extremely high resistance to commonly used antibiotics such as ampicillin, amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, cephalosporins and ciprofloxacin. Only more advanced antibiotics like vancomycin, imipenem and amikacin still showed comparatively better activity. Resistance was highest among hospitalized patients—particularly children—highlighting an urgent need for strengthened stewardship, improved infection prevention and control, and better diagnostic capacity to guide effective treatment.