Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium at a university hospital in Taiwan, 2002–2015: Fluctuation of genetic populations and emergence of a new structure type of the Tn1546-like element

Vancomycin resistance increased significantly to 31.3% among Enterococcus faecium in 2006 and remained high thereafter at a university hospital in Taiwan. A longitudinal study was retrospectively conducted to characterize these vancomycin-resistant E. faecium (VRE-fm).A total of 378 non-repetitive VRE-fm blood isolates collected during 2002-2015 were studied. Multilocus sequence typing, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, analysis of van genes and...