Veterinary hospital environments contain carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales with clonal spread between...

To investigate the patterns of environmental contamination by carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales (CPE) at veterinary hospitals in or around Philadelphia, PA, and to determine genetic relatedness between isolates.

Between September 2022 and August 2023, participating hospitals (n = 15) completed a survey regarding demographic data, antimicrobial stewardship efforts and prescribing practices, and infection prevention practices. Samples were collected from a variety of environmental surfaces (n = 311) at each hospital and then enriched and cultured on selective agar to screen for CPE. Confirmed CPE isolates were whole genome sequenced.

Of the 15 hospitals that participated in the study, 6 hospitals (40%) had CPE isolated from at least 1 site. All CPE harbored the blaNDM-7 carbapenemase gene. Of the 24 confirmed CPE isolates, 21 isolates (79%) belonged to a clonal cluster of Enterobacter hormaechei subsp xiangfangensis (single nucleotide polymorphism cluster PDS000141048 on National Center for Biotechnology Information Pathogen Detection). The PDS000141048 cluster was represented at 5 of the 6 hospitals from which CPE was isolated. Additionally, the PDS000141048 cluster included previously uploaded isolates from a biosecurity screening program at 1 of the hospitals in the study, as well as isolates from clinical specimens from outside of the Philadelphia area.

These data suggest that CPE can be common in the veterinary hospital environment. We also detected the presence of a network of transmission of carbapenemase-producing E hormaechei among veterinary hospitals in the greater Philadelphia region.

This finding highlights the importance of environmental infection prevention measures in companion animal veterinary medicine and the need for collaboration across veterinary facilities to prevent the spread of CPE.