Background Uropathogenic Escherichia coli causing urinary tract infections are a major public health issue menacing the effectual treatment of urinary tract infections among females. The use of quinolone antibiotics like Ciprofloxacin and Nalidixic acid for urinary tract infection treatment is customary in Uganda. Misuse of these antibiotics has occasioned the emergence of resistance in Escherichia coli ultimately leading to increased cost of treating UTIs in females. Objectives The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of quinolone resistant genes qepA among Escherichia coli isolates obtained from archived Uropathogenic E. coli at the microbiology laboratory at Makerere university College of Health Sciences. Methods and Materials The study was a cross sectional study which used archived uropathogenic E. coli at the microbiology laboratory at Makerere university College of Health Sciences known to have quinolone resistance. From the 30 archived samples, confirmation was done using phenotypic then genotypic methods. The samples were confirmed to be E. coli using biochemical tests, DNA extraction was done using CTAB and PCR targeting the qepA gene was done Results From the 30 archived samples that were grown on MacConkey agar, 21 samples had pure E. coli colonies. The 21 samples showed positive results for E. Coli when subjected to biochemical tests. Out of the 21 recovered isolates, antibiotic susceptibility pattern revealed that the highest and lowest rates were to nalidixic acid (100%) and ciprofloxacin (66.6%) respectively. Following PCR, 1 of 21 samples was positive for the qepA gene Conclusion The study demonstrated the presence of 4.76% qepA genes, this was in line with most of the studies carried out on plasmid mediated resistance genes where by their prevalence is generally low.

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