Outbreak of CTX‐M‐15‐producing Klebsiella pneumoniae of sequence type 199 in a Latvian teaching hospital

Dumpis U, Iversen A, Balode A, Saule M, Mikla?evi?s E, Giske CG. Outbreak of CTX‐M‐15‐producing Klebsiella pneumoniae of sequence type 199 in a Latvian teaching hospital. APMIS 2010; 118: 713–6. Previous studies on the epidemiology of extended‐spectrum β‐lactamase (ESBL)‐producing Enterobacteriaceae in Latvia are lacking. ESBL‐producing Klebsiella pneumoniae (n = 32) were subjected to pulsed‐field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and selected isolates to multi‐locus sequence typing (MLST). Species identification and susceptibility testing were performed using VITEK2, and sequencing of bla_CTX‐M was performed in selected isolates. PFGE revealed one major clone (n = 23), with most of the isolates derived from the ICU. The clone harboured bla_CTX‐M‐15, was sequence type 199 and comprised two ertapenem non‐susceptible isolates. This is the first report of an ESBL outbreak in Latvia, and calls for increased epidemiological typing of ESBL‐producing Enterobacteriaceae, as well as improved infection control routines.