Comment on: "The relationship between the exposure to healthcare settings and colonization with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureusamong medical students”

Abstract

This article 1 provides crucial insights into the ways in which medical students undergoing clinical placement might pose a risk to patients. The authors have identified a key issue in the clinical teaching setting whereby medical students are unknowing carriers for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and therefore contributing to the potential spread of this deadly infection to vulnerable patients. Medical students often spend much time with patients as part of their training, involving extended periods of interaction and physical contact through clinical examinations. These provide ample opportunities for patients to become infected with MRSA and could lead to a prolonged hospital stay, a deterioration in their health or even prove fatal. 2 Understanding how and why these medical students come to acquire MRSA may aid in disease prevention and ensure the safety of hospitalized patients.It was found that the risk of being a MRSA carrier increased with the duration of clinical training. Fifth year medical students showed a much higher incidence of nasal and axillary

Prevalence of Staphylococcus aureus and MRSA among Medical students: a literature review

“…Some articles also used nutrient broth for bacterial growth, such as brain heart infusion agar with the presence of NaCl at 7,5%, tryptone soy broth enriched agar and mannitol salt agar, quoted sequentially as Jayaweera et al (2020), López-Aguilera et al (2013), Ho, Lai and Chow (2015), and Budri et al (2018). The methodology presented in each article is resumed in Table 2.…”

“…Likewise, other studies have also shown a significantly association between MRSA transport and time of exposure to the hospital. In Jayaweera et al (2020), three batches of medical students, from first, third and fifth year, were screened for MRSA colonization. Before having been exposed to healthcare settings, only 6.4% of 1 st year students were MRSA carriers.…”

“…In the 1960s, a strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was first isolated (Jayaweera et al, 2020). It is now known that this variant is due to the mec(A) and SCCmec genes, which encode altered penicillin-binding proteins (PBP), conferring resistance to beta-lactams and methicillin (Alzoubi et al, 2020).…”