Prevalence and Characterization of Staphylococcus aureus and Methicillin‐Resistant Staphylococcus aureus on Public Recreational Beaches in Northeast Ohio

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus can cause severe life‐threatening illnesses such as sepsis and endocarditis. Although S. aureus has been isolated from marine water and intertidal beach sand, only a few studies have been conducted to assess prevalence of S. aureus at freshwater recreational beaches. As such, we aimed to determine prevalence and molecular characteristics of S. aureus in water and sand at 10 freshwater recreational beaches in Northeast Ohio, USA. Samples were analyzed using standard microbiology methods, and resulting isolates were typed by spa typing and multilocus sequence typing. The overall prevalence of S. aureus in sand and water samples was 22.8% (64/280). The prevalence of methicillin‐resistant S. aureus (MRSA) was 8.2% (23/280). The highest prevalence was observed in summer (45.8%; 55/120) compared to fall (4.2%; 5/120) and spring (10.0%; 4/40). The overall prevalence of Panton‐Valentine leukocidin genes among S. aureus isolates was 21.4% (15/70), and 27 different spa types were identified. The results of this study indicate that beach sand and freshwater of Northeast Ohio were contaminated with S. aureus, including MRSA. The high prevalence of S. aureus in summer months and presence of human‐associated strains may indicate the possibility of role of human activity in S. aureus contamination of beach water and sand. While there are several possible routes for S. aureus contamination, S. aureus prevalence was higher in sites with wastewater treatment plants proximal to the beaches.

Antibacterial activity and synergy of antibiotics with sanguisorbigenin isolated from Sanguisorba officinalis L. against methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus

“…Of late, the emergence of resistant bacteria has become increasingly common (Thapaliya et al 2017). As such, novel studies of antibiotics are urgently required.…”

Antibiotic Resistance in Recreational Waters: State of the Science

“…The authors suggest that humans are a potential direct source for S. aureus in marine water. Additionally, Thapaliya et al [15] evaluated the prevalence of MSSA and MRSA at ten freshwater beaches in Northeastern Ohio and found 11.4% of water samples to be positive for MRSA (8 out of 70 samples) with 18.6% of samples positive for MSSA (13 out of 70 samples). The results of these studies indicate that ambient water at certain coastal marine and freshwater beaches in the U.S. may be contaminated with S. aureus, including MRSA and MSSA.…”

“…An increasing body of research identifies the environment as not only a recipient of drug-resistant bacteria, but as a reservoir and source of resistance genes [9][10][11][12][13]. AMR bacteria and associated genes (also commonly referred to as "antibiotic resistant" or "drug resistant") have therefore become an emerging concern regarding the protection of human health during recreational activities in ambient surface waters [14][15][16][17], yet it remains unclear if exposure to microorganisms with ARGs presents a risk to recreators.…”

“…Bacterial pathogens, include but are not limited to, those in the Enterobacteriaceae family (e.g., pathogenic E. coli, Klebsiella spp., Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., and Yersinia pestis) and Staphylococcus aureus (specifically MRSA), which have all been detected in ambient waters [15,[18][19][20]. Overall, the presence of AMR bacteria and ARGs in surface water is well established [15][16][17][18][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. However, direct comparisons between these studies are difficult as the geography, AMR bacteria and ARGs selected for evaluation, sources of fecal impacts, and methods of determining resistance are highly variable between studies [27,32].…”

Isolation of a Novel Lytic Bacteriophage against a Nosocomial Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Belonging to ST45

“…An emerging ST type is ST45, the closest relative of ST5 and ST22, and a major international representative of the epidemic MRSA (EMRSA) group [ 4 ]. ST45 was reported to be one predominant sequence type of HA-MRSAs and CA-MRSAs in Europe [ 6 – 9 ], North America [ 10 , 11 ], Asia [ 12 – 16 ], and Australia [ 17 ]. This sequence type was associated with multiple serious infections [ 10 , 18 ] and multiresistance to antibiotic therapy [ 10 ].…”