Our findings confirmed that MRSA infections in the community have been increasing in Asian countries. Data also suggest that various MRSA clones have spread between the community and hospitals as well as between countries.

Isolates from Hong Kong showed the highest rate of ciprofloxacin resistance (11.8%), followed by isolates from Sri Lanka (9.5%), the Philippines (9.1%), and Korea (6.5%). Multilocus sequence typing showed that the spread of the Taiwan 19F clone and the Spain 23F clone could be one of the major reasons for the rapid increases in antimicrobial resistance among S. pneumoniae isolates in Asia. Data from the multinational surveillance study clearly documented distinctive increases in the prevalence rates and the levels of antimicrobial resistance among S. pneumoniae isolates in many Asian countries, which are among the highest in the world published to date.The global emergence of in vitro antimicrobial resistance in Streptococcus pneumoniae has become a serious clinical concern since the 1980s (1). During the past two decades, the rates of resistance to penicillin, other beta-lactams, and non-betalactam agents have been increasing rapidly in many parts of the world. In particular, data on rates of pneumococcal resistance from Asian countries at the end of the 1990s were alarming.

For effective CP infusion in MERS, donor plasma with a neutralization activity of a PRNT titre ≥1:80 should be used. ELISA IgG could substitute for the neutralization test in resource-limited situations.