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Microbial Genomics logo Microbial Genomics

Volume 7, Issue 11

Genomic investigation of a suspected outbreak in a neonatal care unit in sub-Saharan Africa Open Access

Abstract

A special-care neonatal unit from a large public hospital in Malawi was noted as having more frequent, difficult-to-treat infections, and a suspected outbreak of multi-drug-resistant was investigated using genomic characterisation. All bloodstream infections (BSIs) from patients in the neonatal ward (=62), and a subset of BSI isolates (=38) from other paediatric wards in the hospital, collected over a 4 year period were studied. After whole genome sequencing, the strain sequence types (STs), plasmid types, virulence and resistance genes were identified. One ST340 clone, part of clonal complex 258 (CC258) and an ST that drives hospital outbreaks worldwide, harbouring numerous resistance genes and plasmids, was implicated as the likely cause of the outbreak. This study contributes molecular information necessary for tracking and characterizing this important hospital pathogen in sub-Saharan Africa.

  • Received:
  • Accepted:
  • Published Online:
Keyword(s): antimicrobial resistance , genome sequencing , hospital outbreak , Klebsiella pneumoniae , neonatal infection and sub-Saharan Africa
Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • Wellcome Trust (Award 206545)
    • Principal Award Recipient: AmyK Cain
  • University of Liverpool (Award RDF160301AC12)
    • Principal Award Recipient: AmyK Cain
© 2021 The Authors
  • This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. This article was made open access via a Publish and Read agreement between the Microbiology Society and the corresponding author’s institution.
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2021-11-18
2025-11-11

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/content/journal/mgen/10.1099/mgen.0.000703
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Genomic investigation of a suspected Klebsiella pneumoniae outbreak in a neonatal care unit in sub-Saharan Africa
M Gen 7, 000703 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.000703
/content/journal/mgen/10.1099/mgen.0.000703
/content/journal/mgen/10.1099/mgen.0.000703
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