Abstract

Badri Thapa, Chanwit Tribuddharat and Sulochana Mahat Basnet

The molecular epidemiology of fifteen clinical strains of Acinetobacter baumannii recovered from various clinical specimens from different wards during January to June, 2010 from a hospital in Nepal was evaluated. Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion test was used for determining in-vitro activities of antibiotics. Molecular epidemiology was investigated by polymerase chain reaction-randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (PCR-RAPD) and plasmid profiling. A. baumannii recovered were multidrug resistant. Isolates represented three antibiotypes (a, b and c). Isolates in antibiotype c (n=12) were resistant to all antibiotics tested while isolates in antibiotype a (n=2) was susceptible to netilmicin and b (n=1) was susceptible to aminoglycosides and fluoroquinolones tested. Four plasmid profiles (i) 1 isolate; (ii) 1 isolate; (iii) 1 isolate; and (iv) 12 isolates and four PCR-RAPD types (I)1isolate; (II) 8 isolates; (III) 1 isolate; (IV) 5 isolates revealed oligoclonal population of A. baumannii. Antibiotypes, plasmid profiles and PCRRAPD types showed no empirical association. A. baumannii isolates were oligoclonal and multi-drug resistant. The emergence of multi-drug resistant oligoclonal population of this pathogen in a hospital warrants for development of appropriate antibiotic policies and immediate implementation of infection prevention and control measures.