Molecular Typing and Resistance Profile of Acinetobacter baumannii Isolates during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Findings from the “EPIRADIOCLINF” Project
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a shift in focus towards controlling the spread of SARS-CoV-2, which has resulted in the neglect of traditional programs aimed at preventing healthcare-associated infections and combating antimicrobial resistance. The present work aims to characterize the...
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Published in | Antibiotics (Basel) Vol. 12; no. 10; p. 1551 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Basel
MDPI AG
19.10.2023
MDPI |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a shift in focus towards controlling the spread of SARS-CoV-2, which has resulted in the neglect of traditional programs aimed at preventing healthcare-associated infections and combating antimicrobial resistance. The present work aims to characterize the colonization or infection with Acinetobacter baumannii of COVID-19 patients and to identify any clonality between different isolates. Specifically, data and resistance profiles of A. baumannii isolates were prospectively collected from patients recruited by the EPIRADIOCLINF project. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) were used for molecular typing. Overall, we analyzed 64 isolates of A. baumannii from 48 COVID-19 patients. According to our analysis, we have identified the spread of a clonally related isolate, referred to as B. The PFGE pattern B includes four subtypes: B1 (consisting of 37 strains), B2 (11), B3 (5), and B4 (2). Furthermore, in the isolates that were examined using MLST, the most observed sequence type was ST/281. In terms of resistance profiles, 59 out of the total isolates (92.2%) were found to be resistant to gentamicin, carbapenems, ciprofloxacin, and tobramycin. The isolation and identification of A. baumannii from COVID-19 patients, along with the high levels of transmission observed within the hospital setting, highlight the urgent need for the implementation of effective prevention and containment strategies. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 2079-6382 2079-6382 |
DOI: | 10.3390/antibiotics12101551 |