• J. Hosp. Infect. · Dec 2005

    A simultaneous outbreak of Serratia marcescens and Klebsiella pneumoniae in a neonatal intensive care unit.

    • C Casolari, M Pecorari, G Fabio, S Cattani, C Venturelli, L Piccinini, M G Tamassia, W Gennari, A M T Sabbatini, G Leporati, P Marchegiano, F Rumpianesi, and F Ferrari.
    • Unit of Microbiology and Virology, Policlinico of Modena, Italy.
    • J. Hosp. Infect. 2005 Dec 1; 61 (4): 312-20.

    AbstractWe describe two concurrent outbreaks of Serratia marcescens and Klebsiella pneumoniae in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Over a 16-month period, a total of 27 infants were either colonized (N=14) or infected (N=13). There were 15 cases of S. marcescens and 11 cases of K. pneumoniae. Both micro-organisms were involved in one fatal case. Seven preterm babies developed septicaemia, two had bacteraemia, three had respiratory infections and one had purulent conjunctivitis. The S. marcescens and K. pneumoniae isolates were investigated by three molecular methods: enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus polymerase chain reaction (PCR), arbitrary primed PCR with M13 primer, and random amplification of polymorphic DNA. Different patterns were found in the 16 S. marcescens epidemic isolates from 16 newborn infants. The major epidemic-involved genotype was linked to the first nine cases and this was subsequently replaced by different patterns. Eight different typing profiles were also determined for the 13 K. pneumoniae isolates from 12 newborn infants. Four K. pneumoniae bacteraemic strains proved to be identical. In conclusion, the typing results revealed that two different micro-organisms (S. marcescens and K. pneumoniae) were simultaneously involved in invasive nosocomial infections in preterm newborns. Two simultaneous clusters of cases were documented. Heterogeneous genotypes among both species were also demonstrated to be present in the NICU at the same time. A focal source for both micro-organisms was not identified but cross-transmission through handling was probably an important route in this outbreak. Strict adherence to handwashing policies, cohorting, isolation of colonized and infected patients, and rigorous environmental hygiene were crucial measures in the containment of the epidemic.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…