First report of meningococcal ciprofloxacin resistance in Greece due to invasive isolates of the sequence type ST-3129

Georgina Tzanakaki (1) , Theano Georgakopoulou (2) , Athanasia Xirogianni (1) , Anastasia Papandreou (1) , Ala-Eddine Deghmane (3) , Ioanna Magaziotou (2) , Muhamed-Kheir Taha (3)

1 National Meningitis Reference Laboratory
2 NPHO - Department of Epidemiological Surveillance and Intervention of the National Public Health Organization
3 Infections Bactériennes Invasives

A local outbreak caused by Neisseria meningitidis occurred in the migration camp in the Greek island of Lesbos during January-February 2020 (4 of 5 cases). In total, 5 samples positive for N. meningitidis were further investigated for sero-/genogroup, PorA, and WGS analysis. MenB was found among 3 cases, while in two cases, MenY was identified. WGS analysis and antibiotic susceptibility testing on the 2 culture positive MenB samples showed the new ST-3129, ciprofloxacin-resistant clone was circulating among the immigrants in the aforementioned camp. This is the first report of ciprofloxacin resistance in Greece.

Keywords: Neisseria meningitidis; Multi locus sequence typing; Ciprofloxacin resistance; WGS

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Microbiology and Parasitology; Bacteriology

Georgina Tzanakaki, Theano Georgakopoulou, Athanasia Xirogianni, Anastasia Papandreou, Ala-Eddine Deghmane, et al.. First report of meningococcal ciprofloxacin resistance in Greece due to invasive isolates of the sequence type ST-3129. European Journal of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, 2020, 39 (12), pp.2467-2470. ⟨10.1007/s10096-020-03965-x⟩. ⟨pasteur-03261558⟩