[Clinical and epidemiological characterization of infections due to imipenem resistant Acinetobacter baumannii at the university hospital Sahloul, Tunisia].

Objective: to characterize epidemiological and clinical features related to the multi-drug Acinetobacter baumannii infections in the university hospital Sahloul in Tunisia.
Material and Methods: retrospective study including twenty-four imipenem resistant Acinetobacter baumannii isolated from twenty patients hospitalized in different wards of the hospital. Study of clinical features related to the infection by multi-drug Acinetobacter baumannii, bacterial identification by classical identification scheme, antibiotic susceptibilities were determined by the disk diffusion method; genotyping was performed by arbitrarily-primed PCR.
Results: the most incriminated ward was the intensive care unit with a high prevalence of septicaemia. All studied strains were multi-drug to all beta-lactams tested. Genotyping has shown the clonality of studied strains. Features incriminated in the acquisition of infection were essentially immunodeficiency, invasive manoeuvring and antibiotherapy.
Conclusion: multidrug Acinetobacter baumannii is increasingly isolated in our hospital. Rational use of antibiotics and rigorous application of hygienic rules could contribute to limit dissemination of such strains.