Apport de la biologie moléculaire dans le diagnostic des infections à Acinetobacter baumannii

Acinetobacter baumannii is an opportunistic pathogen responsible for severe nosocomial infections like pneumonia, especially in mechanically ventilated patients, bacteraemia, urinary infections or wound infections. This bacterium is able of causing outbreaks in hospitals. In addition, the number of strains resistant to carbapenems is increasing worldwide, explaining the fear it inspires to clinicians, especially those from intensive care units, because of difficult-to- treat infections. The management of A. baumannii infections is becoming a public health problem, it is therefore important to use fast and reliable tools to highlight abnormal phenomena in health care facilities. The interest in molecular biology in diagnosis of A. baumannii infections and in detection of epidemics has been demonstrated for many years in the scientific literature. We present here some molecular techniques for detection of this bacterium.