Background: The sepsis is an unacceptable but important cause of morbility and mortality in newborns, for that is indispensable a precocious and specific diagnose, and an adequate antimicrobial treatment that permit to reduce these indices. In this study was estimated the incidence and characterized the cases of neonatal sepsis (NS) in a Colombian hospital. Methods: A descriptive study was carried out. Were evaluated series blood cultures of neonates with suspicion of NS without previous antimicrobial therapy during a year. The isolates were identified by biochemistry techniques and the antimicrobial susceptibility was evaluated according to recommendations of CLSI. The isolated microorganisms were classified as etiological agents of late and early NS. The epidemiological and clinics variables were obtained from the clinic histories. The information was processes in the software Whonet 5.4 and Epi Info Version 3.4/2007. Results: Were studied 50 patient suspicious, 14 (28%) were positive for NS. The more frequent etiological agent was Staphylococcus aureus (52%) which showed resistance to oxaciline in a 36,4%. The percentage of meticiline-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) was 31,8%. Epidemiologically most of the cases were classified as early NS (97,6%). The majority of the mothers were greater of age, from rural zone, with low socioeconomic level. The main risk factors were premature membrane rupture > 18 hours of evolution (47,6%), chorioamnionitis and vaginosis (9,5%). In the newborn the principal risk factors were low weight (52,4%), premature gestational age (69%), masculine sex (66,7%) and regular general state (54,8%). The subcostal retractions were the clinical signs prevailing; with diagnose of respiratory difficulty associate (28,6%). There was association significant statistically between the presence of NS and extended delivery work and RPM > 18 hours. The reasons of prevalence for presenting NS showed greater probability in the masculine newborn than in the feminine, as well as the born of mothers with IVU respect to the born of mothers without IVU Conclusion: Most of the cases of NS were caused by S. aureus, that additionally presented high percentages of antimicrobial resistance. For these reason the necessity of designing strategies to contain the dissemination of these bacteria in the institution Abstracts for SupplementInternational Journal of Infectious DiseasesVol. 14Preview Full-Text PDF Open Archive