Molecular Typing and Resistance Profile of Isolates During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Findings from the "EPIRADIOCLINF" Project

Overview

Journal Antibiotics (Basel)

Specialty Pharmacology

Date 2023 Oct 27

PMID 37887252

Authors

Antonella Agodi

Arturo Montineri

Rosa Manuele

Paola Noto

Giuseppe Carpinteri

Giacomo Castiglione

Patrizia Grassi

Antonio Lazzara

Anna Rita Mattaliano

Giuseppa Granvillano

Claudia La Mastra

Maria Clara La Rosa

Andrea Maugeri

Martina Barchitta

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a shift in focus towards controlling the spread of SARS-CoV-2, which has resulted in the neglect of traditional programs aimed at preventing healthcare-associated infections and combating antimicrobial resistance. The present work aims to characterize the colonization or infection with of COVID-19 patients and to identify any clonality between different isolates. Specifically, data and resistance profiles of isolates were prospectively collected from patients recruited by the EPIRADIOCLINF project. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) were used for molecular typing. Overall, we analyzed 64 isolates of from 48 COVID-19 patients. According to our analysis, we have identified the spread of a clonally related isolate, referred to as B. The PFGE pattern B includes four subtypes: B1 (consisting of 37 strains), B2 (11), B3 (5), and B4 (2). Furthermore, in the isolates that were examined using MLST, the most observed sequence type was ST/281. In terms of resistance profiles, 59 out of the total isolates (92.2%) were found to be resistant to gentamicin, carbapenems, ciprofloxacin, and tobramycin. The isolation and identification of from COVID-19 patients, along with the high levels of transmission observed within the hospital setting, highlight the urgent need for the implementation of effective prevention and containment strategies.

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