Antimicrobial resistance monitoring of potential pathogens causing bloodstream infections

Abstract

Microbiological monitoring, being an integral component of epidemiological surveillance of healthcare associated infection (HAI), is one of the most important components in hospital patient safety. The purpose of monitoring is the etiological interpretation of pathogens, the identification of microbial hospital strains and development of strategies as well as tactics for combating them. In modern conditions development of healthcare and humanity as a whole, the most important problem is the steady increase in the number of HAI caused by antimicrobial drug-insensitive pathogens and decreased drug effectiveness used in therapy. The structure of infectious conditions in the hospital is specific and is determined by the profile and nature of the treatment, nosology and age of patients. The main pathogens in the etiological structure of HAI are Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumanii, Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium. The study estimated the prevalence of bloodstream infections pathogens resistant to antimicrobial agents in healthcare facilities in St. Petersburg. We retrospectively analyzed data on the antimicrobial resistance for the six clinically significant HAI pathogens that were detected in the blood samples at the 50 hospitals of St. Petersburg during the years 2016–2019. It was found that the use of β-lactam antibiotics is not effective in the treatment of patients with bloodstream infections (BSI) caused by S. aureus (in 21.9% of BSI cases), E. coli (2.1%), Klebsiella spp. (39.6%), P. aeruginosa (40.5%), Acinetobacter spp. (66.7%), Enterococcus spp. (4.4%). This article shows that targeted microbiological monitoring of HAI caused by resistant pathogens should be considered as an effective organizational mechanism for timely detection and prevention of complications that are observed in medical care to patients at high risk for bloodstream infections. Identification of the features of the epidemic process for purulentseptic infections in medical organizations contributes to the improved preventive measures in order to improve the quality of medical care. Microbiological monitoring data are necessary for the development and implementation of measures to curb the further growth of antimicrobial resistance of infectious disease pathogens.