Abstract
Bacillus cereus is the 2nd most frequent bacterial agent responsible for food-borne outbreaks in France and the 3rd in Europe. In addition, local and systemic infections have been reported, mainly describing individual cases or single hospital setting. The real incidence of such infection is unknown and information on genetic and phenotypic characteristics of the incriminated strains is generally scarce. We performed an extensive study of B. cereus strains isolated from patients and hospital environments from nine hospitals during a 5-year study, giving an overview of the consequences, sources and pathogenic patterns of B. cereus clinical infections. We demonstrated the occurrence of several hospital-cross-contaminations. Identical B. cereus strains were recovered from different patients and hospital environments for up to 2 years. We also clearly revealed the occurrence of inter hospital contaminations by the same strain. These cases represent the first documented events of nosocomial epidemy by B. cereus responsible for intra and inter hospitals contaminations. Indeed, contamination of different patients with the same strain of B. cereus was so far never shown. In addition, we propose a scheme for the characterization of B. cereus based on biochemical properties and genetic identification and highlight that main genetic signatures may carry a high pathogenic potential. Moreover, the characterization of antibiotic resistance shows an acquired resistance phenotype for rifampicin. This may provide indication to adjust the antibiotic treatment and care of patients.
Highlights
Bacillus cereus is a spore forming and ubiquitous bacterium present in soil, foods, insect larvae, almost all surfaces and human skin [1, 2]
A single B. cereus strain was included per patient, except if several strains were isolated in different clinical sites or over a prolonged time period
B. cereus is notoriously associated with food poisoning and eye infections [31, 32]
Summary
Bacillus cereus is a spore forming and ubiquitous bacterium present in soil, foods, insect larvae, almost all surfaces and human skin [1, 2]. Besides food poisoning [3, 4], B. cereus induces local and systemic infections [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. Several cases of fulminant infections similar to anthrax, and affecting healthy persons, have been reported [20,21,22]. Case reports describe mainly individual cases or come from single hospital centers and no large survey has been done on B. cereus clinical infections. As B. cereus is mainly considered as an environmental contaminant, delays in treatments may compromise the clinical outcome
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