Multidrug-resistant acinetobacter baumannii: A major threat worldwide

Abstract

Historically, Acinetobacter spp have been associated at the beginning of 70 with opportunistic infections that were rare and modest severity. The last 3 decades have seen an increase in both the incidence and seriousness of Acinetobacters, especially of A. baumannii infections. There is an indication of an increase also in the number of reported A. baumannii bloodstream infections and very seriously wound infection in patients at military medical facilities in Iraq, Kuwait and Afganistan. Together with this fact, A. baumannii infections became very important because of concomitant development of resistance and multiresistance of the strains to antimicrobial drugs with high rates. This paper reflects the problem A. baumannii infections of the literature' background and own data, their clonal spread significance and multidtug/pandrug'/ resistance threat worldwide. © 2009 Springer Science + Business Media B.V.