Screening for Carbapenemases in Ertapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae Collected at a Tunisian Hospital Between 2014 and 2018

BACKGROUND: Carbapenem-resistance is frequently detected in Enterobacteriaceae isolated from patients in Tunisia. The study was performed to identify frequent carbapenemases in Tunisian isolates. METHODS: Between May 2014 and January 2018, 197 ertapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae were isolated at the microbiological department of the Military Hospital of Tunis. The strains were phenotypically characterized and then subjected to in-house polymerase chain reaction (PCR) targeting the carbapenemase genes bla(IMP), bla(VIM), bla(NDM), bla(SPM), bla(AIM), bla(DIM),bla(GIM), bla(SIM), bla(KPC), bla(BIC), and bla(OXA-48). RESULTS: The assessed 197 ertapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae from Tunis comprised 170 Klebsiella pneumoniae, 19 Enterobacter cloacae, 6 Escherichia coli, 1 Citrobacter sedlakii, and 1 Enterobacter asburiae. Thereby, 55 out of 197 isolates (27.9%) were from blood cultures, suggesting a systemic disease. The carbapenemase gene bla(OXA-48) quantitatively dominated by far with 153 detections, followed by bla(NDM) with 14 detections, which were distributed about the whole study interval. In contrast, bla(BIC) and bla(VIM) were only infrequently identified in 5 and 3 cases, respectively, while the other carbapenamases were not observed. CONCLUSIONS: The carbapenemase gene bla(OXA-48) was identified in the vast majority of ertapenem-resistant Tunisian Enterobacteriaceae while all other assessed carbapenemases were much less abundant. In a quantitatively relevant minority of isolates, the applied PCR-based screening approach did not identify any carbapenemases.