blaOXA-48 Carbapenem Resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa Clinical Isolates in Sudan

Abstract

Carbapenems are the last resort of antimicrobial therapy, resistance to antibiotics specially carbapenems poses a global problem that may have devastating consequences on the community. We investigated 67 multidrug resistant clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa for the presence of the blaoxa-48 gene using real time PCR. The isolates were obtained from Three major hospitals in Khartoum state Sudan; Army hospital, Khartoum hospital and the national Ribat university teaching hospital, from December 2015 to January 2017. Out of 67 samples, 22.4% were positive for the blaoxa-48, 46.3% were resistant to Imipenem and 32.8% of the samples were resistant to Meropenem. The emergence of carbapenem resistance possesses an imminent threat, leaving patients with no choice of treatment. Monitoring the emergence of resistant strains will allow taking suitable preventive measures to take place. Our findings revealed that carbapenem resistant due to the gene blaOXA-48 is accounted for 22.4% of the cases, and due to poor data documentation about the emergence of this gene in Sudan, these cases to the best of our knowledge are the first to be reported in Sudan.