Nosocomial clustering of NDM-1-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae sequence type 340 strains in four patients at a South Korean tertiary care hospital

Abstract

In November 2010, NDM-1-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae (NDMKP) was identified for the first time in South Korea from four patients with no history of traveling abroad who stayed for 21 to 205 days in a tertiary care hospital. All were sequence type (ST) 340 and had nearly identical XbaI pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) patterns. The bla(NDM-1)-carrying plasmids were in the IncN group, with sizes ranging from 50 to 200 kb. These findings suggest that NDMKP had already been introduced into South Korea before this clustering was found.