Antimicrobial resistance profile of clinical isolates from hospitals across China: CHINET 2024 surveillance report

Abstract This study aimed to monitor clinical isolate susceptibility to antimicrobial agents in healthcare facilities in 31 provinces or cities of China in 2024. Antimicrobial susceptibility of clinical isolates from 74 hospitals was tested using disc diffusion automated systems. The data were interpreted using the 2024 Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute breakpoints. A total of 458,271 clinical isolates were collected, of which 28.3% were Gram-positive and 71.7% were Gram-negative. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus , S. epidermidis, and other coagulase-negative Staphylococcus strain prevalence was 28.4%, 76.5%, and 70.2%, respectively. No vancomycin-resistant clinical Staphylococcus spp. were found. Enterococcus faecalis had significantly lower resistance rates to most antimicrobial agents tested than E. faecium , with a few vancomycin-resistant strains of both identified. The prevalence of penicillin-susceptible Streptococcus pneumoniae was 97.5% in isolates from children and 96.1% in those from adults. The carbapenem resistance rate was < 15.0% for most Enterobacterales species except Klebsiella ; 22.6% and 23.4% of Klebsiella were resistant to imipenem and meropenem, respectively. Most Enterobacterales were highly susceptible to tigecycline (≤ 3.1%) and colistin (≤ 4.2%). Pseudomonas aeruginosa imipenem and meropenem resistance rates were 21.3% and 17.3%, respectively; those of Acinetobacter baumannii were 64.5% and 64.7%, respectively. In 2024, antimicrobial resistance in clinically isolated bacteria in major regions of China remained high. Antimicrobial agents must be rationally selected based on monitoring to effectively control the development of bacterial resistance.