Investigation and management of an A. Baumannii outbreak in ICU.

Acinetobacter baumannii infection is responsible for a wide range of infections, including pneumonia, bacteraemia, meningitis, wound infections, and urinary tract infections. During June 2010, two patients on an intensive care unit in an acute hospital in the UK had multi-resistant A. baumannii identified in samples obtained from a variety of specimens. A further case was identified 31 days following confirmation of the first outbreak. The investigation and management of this outbreak included the introduction of enhanced infection prevention and control precautions; the establishment of an Outbreak Control Team; epidemiological investigations; and the decontamination of equipment and the environment. Isolate typing by the Health Protection Agency Centre for Infections laboratory confirmed the three cases had identical A. baumannii strains: European clone II lineage encoded with an OXA-51-type carbapenemase. This suggests that there was a patient-to-patient spread of multi-resistant A. baumannii.