Screening and characterization of multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria from a remote African area, Sao Tome and Principe [PublishAheadOfPrint]

Occurrence of resistance to last-resort antibiotics was evaluated among Enterobacteriaceae isolates recovered from hospitalized children in a remote African archipelago, São Tomé and Príncipe, where there is limited access to those antibiotics. Fifty patients were screened for colonization by carbapenem-, pan-aminoglycoside-, or polymyxin-resistant Enterobacteriaceae. A total of 36 isolates (including 30 Escherichia coli and 4 Klebsiella pneumoniae) were recovered from 23 patients, including 26 isolates harboring the bla_OXA-181 carbapenemase gene, a single isolate harboring the 16S rRNA methylase gene rmtB encoding pan-resistance to aminoglycosides, and 8 isolates co-harboring both genes. A single isolate possessed the plasmid-borne colistin resistance gene mcr-1. A high clonal relationship was found for OXA-181-producing E. coli (4 clones), and conversely three out of the four OXA-181-producing K. pneumoniae isolates were clonally unrelated. This study overall showed a high prevalence of resistance to last-resort antibiotics in this country where no epidemiological data was previously available.

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