ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Infectious Diseases: Epidemiology and Prevention
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1668856
This article is part of the Research TopicConfronting Antimicrobial Resistance: Trends, Interventions, and Socio-Economic ImpactsView all articles
Active screening and molecular epidemiology characteristics of the fecal colonization of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales from intensive care unit wards in a tertiary hospital in Shanghai, China
Provisionally accepted
- Fifth People's Hospital of Shanghai Fudan University, Shanghai, China
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Background: Active screening for fecal colonization by carbapenem-resistant enterobacterales (CRE-FC) and interventions in intensive care unit (ICU) wards have become important measures to prevent carbapenem-resistant enterobacterales (CRE) infection. However, limited data are available on the molecular epidemiology and homology analysis of CRE-FC. This study tried to investigate the molecular epidemiology characteristics and homology of CRE-FC in ICU wards to provide evidence for CRE transmission. Methods: From March 1, 2022 to February 28, 2023, fecal swabs from 435 ICU patients were analyzed using resistant bacteria chromogenic plates. Duplicate strains from the same patient were excluded. Infection prevention and control (IPC) measures were implemented for patients with positive CRE screening results. Bacterial identification, antimicrobial susceptibility testing, multilocus sequence typing (MLST), capsule serotypes, whole-genome sequencing (WGS), and core-genome MLST (cgMLST) were conducted to analyze the molecular epidemiological features and homology of these strains. Results: The prevalence of CRE-FC in ICU wards was 12.6% (55/435). The predominant CRE-FC was Klebsiella pneumoniae (83.6%, 46/55) and Escherichia coli (9.1%, 5/55). Active screening and IPC interventions in 2022 reduced the CRE infection rate decreased from 11.4% to 7.1% . MLST analysis of 46 carbapenem-resistant K. pneumoniae (CRKP-FC) strains showed that ST11 was the dominant sequence type (71.7%, 33/46), followed by ST15 (26.1%, 12/46) and ST290 (2.2%, 1/46). All ST11 and ST15 strains carried blaKPC-2, ten of the ST15 strains additionally carried both blaKPC-2 and blaOXA-1. Phylogenetic analysis revealed two major clades: ST11 and ST15. Conclusion: CRKP-FC was predominant in CRE-FC. Furthermore, phylogenetic analysis suggested that CRKP-FC had clonal spread in ICU wards, with ST11-KL64 as the main clone. Active CRE-FC screening and IPC interventions can effectively reduced CRE infection rates.
Keywords: Active screening, fecal colonization, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales, Molecular epidemiological characteristics, homology
Received: 18 Jul 2025; Accepted: 13 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Zhou, Xu, Shen, Shen and Lin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Fang Shen, shenfang5th@aliyun.com
Yong Lin, linyong7007@163.com
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