Abstract

Acinetobacter baumannii is a common and opportunistic pathogen in hospitals. Intrinsic drug resistance and acquired resistance features have caused high drug resistance in this pathogen. The current research evaluated the antimicrobial resistance profile and identified the extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBL) producing A. baumannii isolates by both phenotypic and genotypic methods. Totally seventy-three A. baumannii isolates were collected from various wards in hospitals and confirmed by standard phenotypic methods during winter 2021. For all isolates approved as A. baumannii, an antimicrobial susceptibility test was performed using the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method. Next, the combined disk method was used to identify ESBL-producing isolates, and finally, the presence of blaTEM and blaPER was investigated in ES-BL-positive isolates with polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Of the 73 A. baumannii isolates, 58 isolates were resistant to all tested antibiotics and most of them were isolated from the ICU wards. The phenotypic test showed that 56 isolates were ESBL-producing (ESBL-positive). PCR screening revealed that 69.9 and 25 of ESBL-positive isolates contained blaTEM and blaPER genes, respectively. The high resistance to most antibiotics and the high prevalence of ESBLs-producing isolates detected in the current study may be due to the overuse or unsuitable use of antibiotics in this region. Therefore, paying more attention is needed to the prescribing practices for different antibiotics. © 2022, Bulgarian Society for Microbiology (Union of Scientists in Bulgaria). All rights reserved.