New Delhi Metallo-β-Lactamase–Producing <i>Enterobacterales</i> Bacteria, Switzerland, 2019–2020
Jacqueline Findlay, Laurent Poirel, Julie A. Kessler, Andreas Kronenberg, Patrice Nordmann
Abstract
C arbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) bac- teria are considered by the World Health Organization to be a critical global health concern; they were placed in the organization's critical-priority group of the priority pathogens list for the research and development of new antibiotics in 2017 (1). Among the Ambler class B -lactamases, the New Delhi metallo--lactamases (NDM) were identifi ed in 2008 in a patient from Sweden who had been hospitalized in India and upon return to Sweden had a carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae sequence type (ST) 14 strain isolated from his urine, leading to the identifi cation of the bla NDM-1 gene (2). In a followup study in 2009, NDM enzymes were shown to be widespread in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh; the bla NDM-1 gene was identifi ed in multiple Enterobacterales species, predominantly in Escherichia coli and K. pneumoniae (3). Since those initial studies, NDM carbapenemases have been reported globally (4,5). The SMART global surveillance program analyzed Enterobacterale isolates in 55 countries from 2008-2014 and found that the prevalence of NDM carbapenemase producers was substantially higher in India, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Serbia (6). In 2010, NDM-1-producing Acinetobacter baumannii bacteria were reported in India (7), and reports in other Acinetobacter spp. followed (8). In 2011, NDM-1 was reported in Pseudomonas aeruginosa in Serbia (9), illustrating a wide host range among gram-negative bacteria.