Emergence of oxa-48-like carbapenemases in clinical enterobacterales from guatemala

Five isolates (four Klebsiella pneumoniae and one Escherichia coli ) displaying resistance to piperacillin/tazobactam and ertapenem and reduced susceptibility to imipenem were found positive for bla OXA-48-like genes ( bla OXA-181 and bla OXA-232) carried on plasmids described previously. Although two K. pneumoniae recovered in 2020 were clonally related, the results suggest that bla OXA-48-like genes have been circulating in Guatemala since 2019. This is the first report of this type of carbapenemase in Central America.