Clinical and epidemiological characterization of infections due to imipenem resistant Acinetobacter baumannii at the university hospital Sahloul, Tunisia

Abstract

to characterize epidemiological and clinical features related to the multi-drug Acinetobacter baumannii infections in the university hospital Sahloul in Tunisia. retrospective study including twenty-four imipenem resistant Acinetobacter baumannii isolated from twenty patients hospitalized in different wards of the hospital. Study of clinical features related to the infection by multi-drug Acinetobacter baumannii, bacterial identification by classical identification scheme, antibiotic susceptibilities were determined by the disk diffusion method; genotyping was performed by arbitrarily-primed PCR. the most incriminated ward was the intensive care unit with a high prevalence of septicaemia. All studied strains were multi-drug to all beta-lactams tested. Genotyping has shown the clonality of studied strains. Features incriminated in the acquisition of infection were essentially immunodeficiency, invasive manoeuvring and antibiotherapy. multidrug Acinetobacter baumannii is increasingly isolated in our hospital. Rational use of antibiotics and rigorous application of hygienic rules could contribute to limit dissemination of such strains.