CHINET 2009 surveillance of antibiotic resistance in Enterococcus in China

Objective To investigate the antimicrobial resistance in Enterococcus species isolated from hospitals in several regions of China during 2009.Methods Twelve general hospitals and 2 children's hospitals were involved in this program.Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was carried out by means of Kirby-Bauer(KB)according to a unified protocol.The data were analyzed by WHONET 5.4 software according to CLSI 2009 breakpoint.Results A total of 3 769 non-duplicate Enterococcus isolates were collected,including E.faecalis(n=1 764,46.8%),E.faecium(n=1 605,42.6%),E.gallinarum(n=60,1.6%)and E.avium(n=51,1.4%).Strains of Enterococcus were still highly susceptible to linezolid,vancomycin and teicoplanin.The overall resistant rates were 4%.Only 3 strains were found resistant to linezolid.The percentage of E.faecalis and E.faecium strains resistant to vancomycin were 0.3% and 3.5%.About 4.3%,11.3% and 15.6% of E.faecalis were resistant to nitrofurantoin,fosfomycin and ampicillin.Forty percent(40%)of E.faecalis isolates were resistant to gentamicin(high level).E.faecium strains were more resistant to most of the antibiotics tested than E.faecalis.More than 90% E.faecium strains were resistant to ampicillin;and nearly 70% resistant to gentamicin(high level),but only 5.4% resistant to chloramphenicol.The antibiotic resistance of Enterococcus varied widely with region or hospital.Conclusions The increasing prevalence of VRE in some hospitals,especially the emergence of linezolid resistant strains,should be paid serious attention to in clinical and laboratory practice.