Epidemiology and Characteristics of <i>Elizabethkingia</i> spp. Infections in Southeast Asia

oleh: Asdren Zajmi, Jeanette Teo, Chew Chieng Yeo

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2022-04-01

Deskripsi

<i>Elizabethkingia</i> spp. is a ubiquitous pathogenic bacterium that has been identified as the causal agent for a variety of conditions such as meningitis, pneumonia, necrotizing fasciitis, endophthalmitis, and sepsis and is emerging as a global threat including in Southeast Asia. <i>Elizabethkingia</i> infections tend to be associated with high mortality rates (18.2–41%) and are mostly observed in neonates and immunocompromised patients. Difficulties in precisely identifying <i>Elizabethkingia</i> at the species level by traditional methods have hampered our understanding of this genus in human infections. In Southeast Asian countries, hospital outbreaks have usually been ascribed to <i>E. meningoseptica</i>, whereas in Singapore, <i>E. anophelis</i> was reported as the main <i>Elizabethkingia</i> spp. associated with hospital settings. Misidentification of <i>Elizabethkingia</i> spp. could, however, underestimate the number of cases attributed to the bacterium, as precise identification requires tools such as MALDI-TOF MS, and particularly whole-genome sequencing, which are not available in most hospital laboratories. <i>Elizabethkingia</i> spp. has an unusual antibiotic resistance pattern for a Gram-negative bacterium with a limited number of horizontal gene transfers, which suggests an intrinsic origin for its multidrug resistance. Efforts to prevent and further understand <i>Elizabethkingia</i> spp. infections and limit its spread must rise to this new challenge.