Loading...
Carbapenems have been the last-resort antibiotics for treating multidrug-resistant Enterobacteriaceae. However, these organisms are now manifesting carbapenem resistance with increasing frequency. The most common mechanism for such resistance in the U.S. is the production of so-called Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase.
In July 2010, the CDC was notified of a patient who, after being hospitalized for 12 days in Greece, returned to the U.S. and had carbapenemase-producing K. pneumoniae isolated from her blood. The carbapenemase produced — Verona integron-encoded metallo-β-lactamase — had been described previously among Enterobacteriaceae in Greece but had never been reported in the U.S. The isolate was resistant to all antibiotics generally …