CHINET 2010 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 2010.Methods Twelve general hospitals and 2 children hospitals were involved in this program. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was carried out by means of Kirby-Bauer(K-B) according to the unified protocol.The data were analyzed by WHONET 5.4 software according to CLSI 2010 breakpoints.Results A total of 4 046 nonduplicate Enterococcus isolates were collected.The most common isolates were E.faecalis(1 829,45.2%).E.faecium (1 817,44.9%).E.gallinarum(78,1.9%),E.avium (54,1.3%) and E.casseli flavus(49,1.2%).The strains of Enterococcus were still highly susceptible to linezolid, vancomycin and teicoplanin.The overall resistance rates were4%.The prevalence of vancomycin-resistant E.faecalis and E.faecium was 0.6%and 3.6%,respectively. The percentage of E.faecalis resistant to nitrofurantoin,fos- fomycin and ampicillin was 3.2%.5.7%and 11.3%.respectively.About 44.0%of E.faecalis isolates were resistant to gentamicin (high level).The E.faecium strains were more resistant to most drugs tested than E.faecalis.Nearly 90%and 70%E. faecium strains were resistant to ampicillin and gentamicin(high level).respectively.But only 7.3%of these strains were resistant to chloramphenicol.Less than 10%of the E.faecium isolated from children were resistant to fosfomycin or nitrofurantoin. The resistance of Enterococcus varied widely with region or hospital.Conclusions The prevalence of E.faecium is increasing progressively.Linezolid,vancomycin and teicoplanin are still active against Enterococcus isolates.