CHINET 2011 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 2011.Methods Thirteen general hospitals and 2 children's hospitals were involved in this program.Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was carried out by means of Kirby-Bauer method according to a unified protocol.The data were analyzed by WHONET5.6 software based on CLSI 2011 breakpoints.Results A total of 4 593 nonduplicate Enterococcus isolates were collected.The most common isolates were E.faecium(2 073,45.1%),E.faecalis(2 062,44.9%),E.gallinarum(102,2.2%)and E. avium(52,1.1%).The strains of Enterococcus were still highly susceptible to linezolid,vancomycin and teicoplanin. The overall resistance rates were4.0%.The prevalence of vancomycin-resistant E.faecalis and E.faecium was 0.1% and 3.6%,respectively.The percentage of E.faecalis strains resistant to nitrofurantoin,fosfomycin and ampicillin was 4.1%,4.2% and 11.5%,respectively.About 43.1% of E.faecalis isolates were resistant to gentamicin(high lev-el).The E.faeciumstrains were more resistant to most drugs tested than E.faecalis.Nearly 92.4%and 67.9% E.faecium strains were resistant to ampicillin and gentamicin(high level),respectively.But only 8.3% of these strains were resistant to chloramphenicol.Conclusions The prevalence of E.faeciumis increasing progressively.Linezolid,vancomycin and teicoplanin are still active against Enterococcus isolates.