A. baumannii has now emerged as a leading cause of hospital and
community-acquired infections. Multidrug resistant A. baumannii has been increasingly
reported worldwide. Carbapenem Resistant A. baumannii (CRAB) is enlisted as number
one in the critical priority of the “Global Priority Pathogen List” by WHO, 2017. A
simple and useful molecular technique for identifying A. baumannii isolates is the
identification of the blaOXA-like- carbapenemase gene by Polymerase Chain Reaction
(PCR) method. Objectives: The aim of this study was to detect the prevalence of
blaOXA23 like and blaOXA58 like genes among 25 carbapenem resistant A. baumannii
isolates at Benha University Hospital. Methodology: Different clinical samples were
cultured on CHROMagarTM Acinetobacter medium and identified to the species level by
Vitek2 automated system. All A. baumannii strains were screened for carbapenem
resistance by culture on CHROMagarTM with MDR supplement and CRAB was
confirmed by Vitek2 system. PCR was used for BlaOXA 23 gene and blaOXA58 gene
detection in A. baumannii strains. Results: 25(20.8%) out of 120 different samples were
positive for Acinetobacter by culture on CHROMagarTM Acinetobacter media. all
Acinetobacter isolated strains (100%) were identified as A. baumannii by vitek2
identification cards. All strains of A. baumannii were carbapenem resistant (CRAB) as
they were resistant to Imipenem and Meropenem. Also, all strains were Multi Drug
Resistant (MDR). Four (16%) strains of A. baumannii were sensitive to each of
Tigecyclin and Trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole. in this study out of 25 resistant strains,
23 A. baumannii strains had carbapenem resistance genes (all had blaOXA23 and one of
them had both blaOXA23 and blaOXA58) as diagnosed by PCR. Conclusion: PCR of the
CRAB showed that blaOXA-23 gene had higher rate (92%) than blaOXA-58 gene (4%)
in A. baumannii clinical isolates. Tigecycline can be considered a good therapeutic
option due to the presence of some sensitive CRAB strains.