Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

An Outbreak of Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci in a City Hospital Intensive Care Unit: Molecular Characterization of Resistance

Version 1 : Received: 14 September 2023 / Approved: 15 September 2023 / Online: 15 September 2023 (11:41:52 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Şenol, F.F.; Tanrıverdi, E.S.; Aytaç, Ö.; Aşçı Toraman, Z.; Otlu, B. An Outbreak of Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci in a City Hospital Intensive Care Unit: Molecular Characterization of Resistance. Medicina 2023, 59, 2081. Şenol, F.F.; Tanrıverdi, E.S.; Aytaç, Ö.; Aşçı Toraman, Z.; Otlu, B. An Outbreak of Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci in a City Hospital Intensive Care Unit: Molecular Characterization of Resistance. Medicina 2023, 59, 2081.

Abstract

Vancomisin resistant enterococcus(VRE), is a resistant microorganism which colonizates and causes infections in hospitalized patients. It was aimed to show the spread of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (fVREfm) step-by-step in all intensive care units, which started with the growth of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VREfm) on 02.12.2021 in the blood culture of a patient hospitalized in the anesthesia intensive care unit of our hospital and was found to have reached epidemic size in the surveys. Rectal swab samples were taken from all patients hospitalized in intensive care units, VRE colonization was determined and the VanA and VanB resistance genes associated with vancomycin resistance of VREfm isolates were determined by PCR method, and clonal association analysis was performed by Arbitrarily Primed-PCR (AP-PCR) and Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis. In our study, VRE was detected in 61 of 2601 rectal swab samples. 54 (85.52%) of the VRE isolates were Enterococcus faecium, 3 (4.91%) was Enterococcus faecalis, 3 (4.91%) was Enterococcus gallinorum, 1 (1.63%) was Enterococcus casseliflavus. It was determined that all of the 54 VREfm isolates, which were the most detected among all VRE isolates, carried the vanA gene. In the clonal association analysis of the isolates by AP-PCR and PFGE methods, it was found that they had 12 different genotypes, 48 of them were included in any cluster, the clustering rate was 88.8%, and the largest cluster was genotype 1 cluster with 36 isolates. Of the 54 patients with VREfm isolated recently, 18.51 percent of the clinical samples were isolated before the survey, and 9.24% were isolated after the survey. It was determined that 100% of VREfm isolates were resistant to ampicillin, levofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, high-level gentamicin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, teicoplanin, 7.4% to tigecycline and 1.85% to linezolid. In our study, in the clonal association analysis performed by isolating VREfm in rectal swab samples, it was found that 88.8% of the samples were indistinguishably similar and the increase in the number of VREfm infections after the index case in our hospital was associated with the epidemic. VREfm infections cause long term hospitalization, costs and also deaths, which shows the seriousness of the event, and the importance of the combination of epidemiological and molecular analysis in epidemic research.

Keywords

vancomycin-resistant enterococcus faecium; hospital epidemic; whole genome analysis; infection prevention and control

Subject

Medicine and Pharmacology, Medicine and Pharmacology

Comments (0)

We encourage comments and feedback from a broad range of readers. See criteria for comments and our Diversity statement.

Leave a public comment
Send a private comment to the author(s)
* All users must log in before leaving a comment
Views 0
Downloads 0
Comments 0
Metrics 0


×
Alerts
Notify me about updates to this article or when a peer-reviewed version is published.
We use cookies on our website to ensure you get the best experience.
Read more about our cookies here.