The number of infections attributable to community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) in Singapore is progressively increasing. Most cases in the past 2 years were caused by Panton-Valentine leukocidin-positive isolates belonging to sequence type 30, according to multilocus sequence typing. This has clearly become the predominant sequence type among CA-MRSA isolates in Singapore.

The aim of this study was to determine the extent of EMRSA-15 spread in hospitals in Singapore. Molecular analysis of 197 non-duplicate meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates collected from five acute care public hospitals in Singapore in May 2005 revealed that 66 (33.5 %) were EMRSA-15 while 121 (61.4 %) belonged to the endemic multidrug-resistant ST239 clone. Median and mode vancomycin MIC for both major clones of health-care-associated MRSA were relatively high at 2.0 mg ml "1 . Subsequent laboratory surveillance data collected from the first half of 2006 confirmed increasing numbers of the EMRSA-15 clone -ranging from 25.0 to 66.1 % of all MRSA isolated in local hospitals -replacing the ST239 clone island-wide.

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