Research and analysis

HPR volume 12 issue 21: news (15 June)

Updated 21 December 2018

© Crown copyright 2018

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-protection-report-volume-12-2018/hpr-volume-12-issue-21-news-15-june

ECDC reviews risk posed by carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae

Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae – the subject of an updated rapid risk assessment published by ECDC [1] – represent a risk to patients and healthcare systems, causing infections associated with high mortality due to the limited treatment options available. Outbreaks in healthcare settings have been reported by several EU/EEA countries including the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and the UK [1].

The new risk assessment, updating ECDC’s first report in April 2016, provides a comprehensive review of the state of knowledge about carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) including:

  • the various and complex – usually enzyme-mediated – mechanisms involved in the spread of resistance
  • the extent of proliferation across the EU/EEA of the 2 resistant strains that are currently of greatest concern.

A series of control actions are put forward covering:

  • prevention and control of spread within healthcare systems, including pre-emptive infection prevention and control measures for patients at high risk
  • prevention of spread via the food chain
  • prevention of cross-border spread
  • long-term, world-wide measures to improve the capacity for resistance detection and surveillance in low-resource countries

The report includes graphical presentation of data and maps – from the ECDC EARS-Net annual report [2] – that indicates, in some cases, a high variance in the national rates of carbapenem resistance in invasive disease isolates across the continent.

References

  1. ECDC (4 June 2018). Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae – first update.
  2. ECDC (November 2017). Surveillance of antimicrobial resistance in Europe: annual report of the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network (EARS-Net), 2016.

Infection reports in this issue of HPR

This issue of HPR includes infection reports on:

Back to top