Antibiogram, Prevalence of OXA Carbapenemase Encoding Genes, and RAPD-Genotyping of Multidrug-Resistant Incriminated in Hidden Community-Acquired Infections.

spp. has gained fame from their ability to resist difficult conditions and their constant development of antimicrobial resistance. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence, susceptibility testing, OXA carbapenemase-encoding genes, and RAPD-genotyping of multidrug resistant incriminated in hidden community-acquired infections in Egypt. The antimicrobial susceptibility testing was assessed phenotypically using Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method. Also, Modified-Hodge test (MHT) was carried out to detect the carbapenemases production. Multiplex-PCR was used to detect the carbapenemase-encoding genes. Furthermore, the genetic relationship among the isolated strains was investigated using RAPD fingerprinting. The bacteriological examination revealed that, out of 200 Gram-negative non-fermentative isolates, 44 (22%) were identified phenotypically and biochemically as spp. and 23 (11.5%) were molecularly confirmed as . The retrieved strains were isolated from urine (69%), sputum (22%), and cerebrospinal fluid (csf) (9%). The isolated strains exhibited multidrug resistance and the production rates of carbapenemases were 56.5, 60.9, and 78.3% with meropenem, imipenem, and ertapenem disks, respectively. The -like genes were the most predominant among the tested strains (65.2%), followed by (30.4%) and (17.4%), in addition, the examined strains are harbored IMP, VIM, and NDM genes with prevalence of 60.9, 43.5, and 13%, respectively, while KPC and GES genes were not detected. RAPD-PCR revealed that the examined strains are clustered into 11 different genotypes at ≥90% similarity. Briefly, to the best of our knowledge, this study is the first report concerning community-associated infections in Egypt. The high prevalence of hidden multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) strains associated with non-hospitalized patients raises an alarm for healthcare authorities to set strict standards to control the spread of such pathogens with high rates of morbidity and mortality.