title: Epidemiology and resistance features of Acinetobacter baumannii isolates from the ward environment and patients in the burn ICU of a Chinese hospital.
abstract: Acinetobacter baumannii is an important opportunistic pathogen that causes severe nosocomial infections, especially in intensive care units (ICUs). Over the past decades, an everincreasing number of hospital outbreaks caused by A. baumannii have been reported worldwide. However, little attention has been directed toward the relationship between A. baumannii isolates from the ward environment and patients in the burn ICU. In this study, 88 A. baumannii isolates (26 from the ward environment and 62 from patients) were collected from the burn ICU of the Southwest Hospital in Chongqing, China, from July through December 2013. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing results showed that drug resistance was more severe in isolates from patients than from the ward environment, with all of the patient isolates being fully resistant to 10 out of 19 antimicrobials tested. Isolations from both the ward environment and patients possessed the β-lactamase genes bla OXA-51, bla OXA-23, bla AmpC, bla VIM, and bla PER. Using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multi-locus sequence typing (MLST), these isolates could be clustered into 4 major PFGE types and 4 main sequence types (ST368, ST369, ST195, and ST191) among which, ST368 was the dominant genotype. Epidemiologic and molecular typing data also revealed that a small-scale outbreak of A. baumannii infection was underway in the burn ICU of our hospital during the sampling period. These results suggest that dissemination of β-lactamase genes in the burn ICU might be closely associated with the high-level resistance of A. baumannii, and the ICU environment places these patients at a high risk for nosocomial infection. Cross-contamination should be an important concern in clinical activities to reduce hospitalacquired infections caused by A. baumannii.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, P. R. China.|Institute of Burn Research, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yali
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Xiaodong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Guangtao
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Cheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Xiaoqiang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Supeng
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Fuquan
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, P. R. China. yizhipen@sina.com.
authors.forename: Yizhi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, P. R. China. liming@tmmu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000151:Acinetobacter Infections / Q000382:microbiology*; D040981:Acinetobacter baumannii / Q000145:classification / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D002681:China; D003428:Cross Infection; D024901:Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial; D004865:Equipment and Supplies, Hospital / Q000382:microbiology*; D006761:Hospitals / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D001426:Bacterial Proteins
keywords: Acinetobacter baumannii; burn ICU; epidemiology; nosocomial infection; resistance