Clonal spread of carbapenem resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa in an university hospital.
OBJECTIVE
We examined 14 Pseudomonas aeruginosa clinical isolates collected in 2000 from patients hospitalised in different wards at Charle Nicolle hospital from Tunisia.


METHODS
Analysis includes serotyping, antimicrobial susceptibility profile, beta-lactamase detection, randomly amplified polymorphic DNA and pulsed field gel electrophoresis. All Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains belonged to serotype O12 and they demonstrated a high level of resistance to all antibiotioc tested.


RESULTS
Beta-lactamase detection revealed that 9 of these strains had ceftazidime activity restored by cloxacillin and none of the 14 strains were metallo-beta-lactamase producing. Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA analysis and pulsed field gel electrophoresis were able to discriminate isolates and gave concordant results which showed epidemiologically related strains.


CONCLUSIONS
These results confirm a clonal spread of multiresistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa O12 throughout the hospital.
Hammami
Samia
S
Laboratoire de Recherche Résistance aux Antibiotiques Faculté de Médecine de Tunis.
Ghozzi
Rafiâa
R
Ben Ayed
Salima
S
Ben Hassen
Assia
A
Ben Redjeb
Saida
S
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D015780:Carbapenems / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D024901:Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial; D006785:Hospitals, University; D006801:Humans; D011552:Pseudomonas Infections / Q000188:drug therapy*; D011550:Pseudomonas aeruginosa
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D015780:Carbapenems