Work

Emergence of New Delhi Metallo-β-Lactamase, Austria

Year: 2010

Type: article

Abstract: To the Editor: Extended-spectrum β-lactamase-producing Enterobacteriaceae strains have emerged as a major public health problem throughout the world, particularly in India and Pakistan.The widespread use of carbapenems, the only agents reliably active against these bacteria, resulted in the emergence of a new resistance mechanism.New Delhi metallo-βlactamase (NDM-1) was fi rst detected in a Klebsiella pneumoniae isolate in 2008 from a Swedish patient of Indian origin; it has since been reported in increasing numbers of infections in patients from India, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom (1-3).NDM-1 shares very little identity with other metallo-β-lactamase enzymes; Enterobacteriaceae isolates with NDM-1 show high resistance to nearly all commonly used antibacterial agents (4).Most NDM-1 patients in Europe and the United States had received medical care in India or Pakistan before isolation of the strain.However, the emergence of NDM-1 poses the risk of plasmid-mediated transfer of the carbapenemase enzyme bla NDM-1 between different bacterial strains, which could lead to serious public health issues (3,5).We report the emergence of NDM-1-positive K. pneumoniae in Austria in 2009-2010.Primers for PCR detection of NDM-1 were designed according to GenBank (National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA) database entry AB571289.1 (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/300422615).The forward primer NDM-1gf 5′-ACC GCC TGG ACC GAT GAC CA-3′ (positions 80-99), and reverse primer NDM-1gr 5′-GCC AAA GTT GGG CGC GGT TG-3′ (positions 343-324) were used.

Source: Emerging infectious diseases

DOI: 10.3201/eid1701.101331