detection of metallo-β-lactamase producing pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from public and private hospitals in baghdad, iraq

metallo-β-lactamase (mbl) producing pseudomonas aeruginosa has been reported to be an important nosocomial infection. its intrinsic and acquired resistance to various antimicrobial agents and its ability to develop multidrug resistance imposes a serious therapeutic problem. different clinical samples were collected from public and private hospitals in baghdad city, iraq. bacterial identification was done using conventional cultural, biochemical tests, and vitek 2 system. minimum inhibitory concentration (mic) testing was performed using vitek 2 automated system. each p. aeruginosa isolates showed resistance to carbapenems (imipenem and meropenem) were subjected to imipenem-edta combined disc synergy test (cdst) to investigate the production of mbl (confirmative test). the presence of bla-genes encoded imp, vim, and spm-1 was detected by conventional pcr technique. a total of 75 p. aeruginosa isolates were isolated, 16 (21.3%) were able to grow on macconkey agar supplemented with meropenem 4mg/l (mmac). the mic of different antibiotics showed that 6 (37.5 %) isolates were carbapenem resistant, mic ≥16 µg/ml while 4 (25%) isolates appear to be mbl producer using cdst test. pcr assay revealed that 3 (50%), 1 (16.6%) of the carbapenem resistant isolates harbored blaimp, blaspm-1 genes, respectively. blavim gene was not detected in this study. the prevalence of multi-drug resistant p. aeruginosa isolates especially carbapenem resistant bacteria was increased in baghdad province. the blaimp was the predominant among the mbls genes in p. aeruginosa in this study.