The study was conducted to investigate drug resistance, OXA-type carbapenemases-encoding genes and genetic diversity in airborne Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii) in burn wards. Airborne A. baumannii were collected in burn wards and their corridors using Andersen 6-stage air sampler from January to June 2011. The isolates susceptibility to 13 commonly used antibiotics was examined according to the CLSI guidelines; OXA-type carbapenemases-encoding genes and molecular diversity of isolates were analyzed, respectively. A total of 16 non-repetitive A. baumannii were isolated, with 10 strains having a resistance rate of greater than 50% against the 13 antibiotics. The resistance rate against ceftriaxone, cyclophosvnamide, ciprofloxacin, and imipenem was 93.75% (15/16), but no isolate observed to be resistant to cefoperazone/sulbactam. Resistance gene analyses showed that all 16 isolates carried OXA-51, and 15 isolates carried OXA-23 except No.15; but OXA-24 and OXA-58 resistance genes not detected. The isolates were classified into 13 genotypes (A-M) according to repetitive extragenic palindromic sequence PCR (REP-PCR) results and only six isolates had a homology ≥90%. In conclusion, airborne A. baumannii in the burn wards had multidrug resistance and complex molecular diversity, and OXA-23 and OXA-51 were dominant mechanisms for resisting carbapenems.
Keywords: Airborne Acinetobacter baumannii; Burn wards; Molecular diversity; OXA-type carbapenemases-encoding resistance genes; REP-PCR.
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