Spread of drug-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae in Asian countries: Asian Network for Surveillance of Resistant Pathogens (ANSORP) study

Antimicrobial susceptibility of 996 isolates of Streptococcus pneumoniae fr om clinical specimens was investigated in II Asian countries from September 1996 to June 1997. Korea had the greatest frequency of nonsusceptible stra ins to penicillin with 79.7%, followed by Japan (65.3%), Vietnam (60.8%), T hailand (57.9%), Sri Lanka (41.2%), Taiwan (38.7%), Singapore (23.1%), Indo nesia (21.0%), China (9.8%), Malaysia (9.0%), and India (3.8%). Serotypes 2 3F and 19F were the most common. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) of 154 isolates from Asian countries showed several major PFGE patterns. The serotype 23F Spanish clone shared the same PFGE pattern with strains from K orea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Malaysia. Fingerprinting anal ysis of pbp1a, pbp2x, and pbp2b genes of 12 strains from six countries also showed identical fingerprints of penicillin-binding protein genes in most strains. These data suggest the possible introduction and spread of interna tional epidemic clones into Asian countries and the increasing problems of pneumococcal drug resistance in Asian countries for the first time.