| Summary: | This study aimed to investigate, for the first time, the occurrence and characteristics of extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)- and carbapenemase-producing <i>Enterobacterales</i> in Cape Verde. A total of 98 inpatients hospitalized at Hospital Universitário Agostinho Neto were screened for rectal colonization. All ESBL- and carbapenemase-producing isolates were tested for antimicrobial susceptibility and characterized by multilocus sequence typing. Mating-out assay followed by PCR-based replicon typing were performed to characterize the plasmids harboring carbapenemase encoding genes. A large proportion of patients carried ESBL- or carbapenemase-producing <i>Enterobacterales</i> (56% and 6%, respectively). Among 93 ESBL-producing isolates, there were mainly <i>Klebsiella pneumoniae</i> (58%) and <i>Escherichia coli</i> (37%). Five different ESBLs were detected, with CTX-M-15 being highly predominant (92%). Six carbapenemase-producing isolates (five <i>E. coli</i> and one <i>K. pneumoniae</i>) were recovered, and all of the OXA-48-like type (four OXA-181, one OXA-48, and one OXA-244). The <i>bla</i><sub>OXA-48</sub> gene was located on an IncFI-type plasmid, the <i>bla</i><sub>OXA-181</sub> gene on IncFI or IncX3 plasmids, and the <i>bla</i><sub>OXA-244</sub> gene was found to be chromosomally located. The five carbapenemase-producing <i>E. coli</i> isolates belonged to five distinct sequence types. This study overall showed a very high prevalence of ESBL-producing <i>Enterobacterales</i>, as well as the emergence of carbapenemase producers in this hospital.
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