Caracterización molecular de un brote por Enterococcus faecalis resistente a los glucopéptidos en una unidad de cuidados intensivos

Abstract

Between January and August 2003 glycopeptide-resistant Enterococcus faecalis was isolated from eight patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU).Antibiotic susceptibility testing was performed by disk diffusion and the Etest, clonal relatedness of the isolates was studied by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), and the presence of vanA was investigated by PCR.All the isolates were vanA-positive and had an identical PFGE pattern, showing that an outbreak had occurred in our ICU.