%0 Journal Article %A Tuan Anh, Nguyen %A Nga, Tran Vu Thieu %A Tuan, Huynh Minh %A Tuan, Nguyen Si %A Y, Dao Minh %A Vinh Chau, Nguyen Van %A Baker, Stephen %A Duong, Ho Huynh Thuy %T Molecular epidemiology and antimicrobial resistance phenotypes of Acinetobacter baumannii isolated from patients in three hospitals in southern Vietnam %D 2017 %J Journal of Medical Microbiology, %V 66 %N 1 %P 46-53 %@ 1473-5644 %R https://doi.org/10.1099/jmm.0.000418 %K Acinetobacter baumannii %K carbapenem resistance %K Vietnam %K MLVA %K nosocomial infections %I Microbiology Society, %X Multidrug resistance in the nosocomial pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii limits therapeutic options and impacts on clinical care. Resistance against carbapenems, a group of last-resort antimicrobials for treating multidrug-resistant (MDR) A. baumannii infections, is associated with the expression (and over-expression) of carbapenemases encoded by the bla OXA genes. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant A. baumannii associated with infection in three hospitals in southern Vietnam and to characterize the genetic determinants associated with resistance against carbapenems. We recovered a total of 160 A . baumannii isolates from clinical samples collected in three hospitals in southern Vietnam from 2012 to 2014. Antimicrobial resistance was common; 119/160 (74 %) of isolates were both MDR and extensively drug resistant (XDR). High-level imipenem resistance (>32 µg ml−1) was determined for 109/117 (91.6 %) of the XDR imipenem-nonsusceptible organisms, of which the majority (86.7 %) harboured the bla OXA-51 and bla OXA-23 genes associated with an ISAba1 element. Multiple-locus variable number tandem repeat analysis segregated the 160 A . baumannii into 107 different multiple-locus variable number tandem repeat analysis types, which described five major clusters. The biggest cluster was a clonal complex composed mainly of imipenem-resistant organisms that were isolated from all three of the study hospitals. Our study indicates a very high prevalence of MDR/XDR A. baumannii causing clinically significant infections in hospitals in southern Vietnam. These organisms commonly harboured the bla OXA-23 gene with ISAba1 and were carbapenem resistant; this resistance phenotype may explain their continued selection and ongoing transmission within the Vietnamese healthcare system. %U https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/jmm.0.000418