The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) / World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that Member States increase their efforts to implement prevention and control actions for infections associated with health care, due to the detection and local spread of mutli-resistant microorganisms with New Delhi Metallo-?-lactamase-type (NDM) antimicrobial resistance mechanisms in health services in countries of the Americas.

Recently, the INEI-ANLIS "Dr. Carlos G. Malbrán" Laboratory in Buenos Aires, Argentina, published a national alert on the dissemination of carbapenemases in Argentina. This laboratory is responsible for the external quality assurance program of the Latin American Network for Monitoring Antimicrobial Resistance, coordinated by PAHO. In this alert, the laboratory reported an increase of 800% in isolations of enterobacterium with carbapenemases in the first four-month period of 2010, in comparison to the same period in the previous year.

Due to the recent finding of carbapenemasas of New Delhi metalobetalactamasa (NDM) type in isolations of Klebsiella pneumoniae in Guatemala, the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) emphasizes the importance of the surveillance and detection in the Region of this resistance mechanism that increases morbidity and mortality of the infections associated with health care.

In light of the spread of microorganisms with the New Delhi Metallo-?-lactamase (NDM) resistance mechanism, both across bacterial species and across geographic boundaries, the Pan American Health Organization / World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) emphasizes the importance of strengthening established surveillance and control strategies to prevent further spread of this resistance mechanism.