A healthcare-associated outbreak of urinary tract infections due to Myroides odoratimimus

Myroides spp. are low-grade opportunistic pathogens. There were only a few outbreaks due to Myroides spp. described in the literature to date. We report a healthcare–associated outbreak of urinary tract infections caused by Myroides odoratimimus in a Turkish hospital. From March to May 2019, six strains of M. odoratimimus were isolated from the urine samples of patients hospitalized in the intensive care units (ICUs). After identification and antibiotic susceptibility testing with VITEK 2 system, MALDI‐TOF-MS and 16S rRNA based sequencing methods were performed for confirmation and species level identification. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was used to investigate clonal relatedness of the isolates. All the patients were immunocompromised and underwent urinary catheterization. None of them had urinary neoplasm, surgery or calculi. VITEK 2 and MALDI-TOF-MS systems revealed that the isolates belong to the Myroides genus but lacked to identify the isolates at the species level. 16S rRNA based sequencing successfully identified all the isolates as M. odoratimimus. The isolates were resistant to all antibiotics tested. All isolates had indistinguishable PFGE pattern indicating cross-transmission between cases. Although M. odoratimimus is rarely isolated from human specimens, clinicians should be aware of its ability to cause UTIs and outbreaks.