Antimicrobial Resistance and Epidemiological Typing of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in Ireland (North and South), 1999

Enhanced Discrimination of Highly Clonal ST22-Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus IV Isolates Achieved by Combining spa , dru , and Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis Typing Data

“…48,2010 INTEGRATED PFGE, spa, AND dru TYPING OF ST22-MRSA-IV 1847 typing is highly discriminatory for collections of diverse MRSA isolates, it is inadequate in local epidemiological studies where strain diversity is limited, as with ST22-MRSA-IV. While the 168 ST22-MRSA-IV isolates investigated here were differentiated into 65 type combinations by integrating spa, dru, and PFGE typing data, some of the types identified using each individual method exhibited only minor differences and were assigned to subgroups.…”

“…48,2010 INTEGRATED PFGE, spa, AND dru TYPING OF ST22-MRSA-IV 1849 highlight the need for caution when interpreting data from individual typing methods and show how combining data from the three typing methods permits a more informative evaluation of the relationship among isolates. In the present study, analysis of available epidemiological information for a selected subset of ST22-MRSA-IV isolates was used to confirm the validity of the relationships inferred from the combined PFGE, spa, and dru typing data.…”

“…48,2010 INTEGRATED PFGE, spa, AND dru TYPING OF ST22-MRSA-IV 1841 the third representing the PFT (Table 1). For example, spa type t032, dru type dt10a, and PFT 01018 were assigned the codes 01, 01 and 1, respectively, and isolates with this spa, dru, and PFGE type combination were assigned the 3-digit cluster code 01.01.1.…”

“…MRSA first emerged in Irish hospitals in 1971 (22) and, following a major increase in prevalence in the late 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, has now been endemic in Ireland for three decades (8,9,(45)(46)(47)(48). Molecular typing showed that each decade since the 1970s has been associated with a major shift in the predominant MRSA clonal type in Irish hospitals (51).…”

Investigation of Reduced Susceptibility to Glycopeptides among Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Isolates from Patients in Ireland and Evaluation of Agar Screening Methods for Detection of Heterogeneously Glycopeptide-Intermediate S. aureus

“…A study in 1999 reported that there were no VRSA or GISA among 714 MRSA isolates investigated, and although 5% of the isolates yielded screening results suggestive of hGISA, the hGISA phenotype was not confirmed by PAP (22). In the present study, 3,189 MRSA isolates from 2,990 patients recovered between 1998 and 2004 were investigated to determine the prevalence of VRSA, GISA, and hGISA among MRSA isolates in Ireland and to evaluate agar screening methods for the detection of hGISA.…”