Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium strain carrying the vanB2 gene variant in a Polish hospital

About 2.5 years after the first isolation of the VanA phenotype of vancomyc in-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VREM) in Poland, the first VREM strains with the VanB phenotype have emerged independently in two different Warsaw hospitals. In one of these the VREM strain was selected during the long-ter m antimicrobial treatment of a patient with a wide variety of infection ris k factors who died after 3 months of hospitalization. The strain was found to contain the transferable vanB2 gene cluster variant of the polymorphic t ype that was identified earlier in vancomycin-resistant enterococci from se veral different countries. In the course of infection the strain underwent genetic diversification due to DNA recombination.