High diversity of invasive Haemophilus influenzae isolates in France and the emergence of resistance to third generation cephalosporins by alteration of ftsI gene.
Deghmane A-E., Hong E., Chehboub S., Terrade A., Falguières M., Sort M., Harrison O., Jolley KA., Taha M-K.
BACKGROUND: Invasive infections due to Haemophilus influenzae are infrequent following the implementation of vaccination against H. influenzae of serotype b. However, their changing epidemiology may not be clear due to a lack of appropriate genotyping methods combined with antibiotic susceptibility analyses which do not discriminate invasive and non-invasive isolates. We aimed to describe recent epidemiological trends of invasive H. influenzae infections in France and explore the microbiological characteristics of invasive versus non-invasive isolates. METHODS: All culture- and PCR-confirmed cases due to H. influenzae isolated from a sterile site, that were received at the French national reference centre for H. influenzae during the year 2017 (n = 138) were characterized by whole genome sequencing (WGS), serotyping and antibiotic susceptibility testing. We also included 100 isolates that were received from non-invasive infections. FINDINGS: Most of the non-invasive isolates were non-typeable (99%) and this proportion was significantly less among invasive isolates 75%, p