Acinetobacter baumannii analysis by core genome multi-locus sequence typing in two hospitals in Bolivia: endemicity of international clone 7 isolates (CC25)

In total, 95 Acinetobacter baumannii isolates recovered from patients from two hospitals in Cochabamba, Bolivia were studied. The presence of class D and B beta-lactamases was investigated using polymerase chain reaction, and antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed by agar dilution and broth microdilution. The resistance rate to carbapenems was 53.7%. All carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii (CRAb, n = 51) and four carbapenem-susceptible isolates were further analysed by whole-genome sequencing. The resulting genome assemblies were used to identify the acquired resistome, and core genome multi-locus sequence typing (cgMLST) was used to determine their molecular epidemiology. All but one of the CRAb isolates (n = 50) belonged to international clone (IC) 7 and they clustered into five sequence types; on cgMLST, they were found to be separated by >= 40 alleles. All CRAb isolates carried bla(OXA-23) on transposon Tn2008. Metallo-beta-lactamases were not detected. These data show that dissemination of several IC7 A. baumannii clones harbouring the carbapenem resistance determinant bla(OXA-23) is occurring in these two hospitals in Cochambamba. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. and International Society of Chemotherapy. All rights reserved.