Molecular epidemiology of a multiple strain outbreak of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus amongst patients and staff

Molecular Characterization of the Transmission between the Colonization of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus to Human and Environmental Contamination in Geriatric Long-term Care Wards

“…Of the many possible factors, the most likely factor is poor compliance with recommended infection control policies by health care workers (9). On the other hand, some authors have suggested that contaminated environmental surfaces may serve as a reservoir for MRSA in hospitals (10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18). However, this issue remains a controversial one.…”

“…However, others have concluded that the environment may not be important because of differences in the phenotypes in S. aureus isolated from the hospital environment and patients (25,26). Recently, the association between the dispersion of MRSA strains into the environment by colonized patients and MRSA epidemics has been increasingly reported via the use of molecular typing methods (10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18). However, the transmission between colonies of MRSA to human and environmental contamination continues to be a controversial issue and remains uncertain.…”

Characterisation of non-capsulate Haemophilus influenzae by repetitive extragenic palindromic (REP)-PCR

“…Inter-REP amplification has been applied successfully to epidemiological studies of a wide range of bacterial species including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) [9] and Streptococcus pneumoniae [ 101. Van Belkum et al amplified inter-ERIC DNA from NCHI and showed the results to be concordant with OMP analysis [ 1 11.…”

The role of healthcare personnel in the maintenance and spread of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus

“…It has been recognized that some healthcare workers may yield positive screens only after a shift in an endemic work setting, and thus it has been proposed that health personnel screening should take place at the start of a shift [116,119,128]. The continuing staff reservoir for MRSA is mainly the long-term carrier, and such dissemination can be intermittent or continuous [34,36,41,45,77,79,83,84,131,132].…”

“…Some have proposed that staff screening should be an active component of routine control methods [36,41,43,50,51,60,111,189,190]. The results of screening must be tempered with the possibility that more than one strain may be found among personnel [43,109,173] and that more than one outbreak may be occurring simultaneously, especially in heavily endemic settings [34,80,96,110]. Furthermore, an individual may carry more than one strain [110].…”