Abstract
USA300 is the dominant strain responsible for community-associated (CA) methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections in most of the United States. We examined isolates from outbreaks of MRSA skin infections in rural southwestern Alaska in 1996 and 2000 (retrospective collection) and from the hospital serving this region in 2004-2006 (prospective collection). Among 36 retrospective collection isolates, 92% carried Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) genes; all carried staphylococcal chromosomal cassette mec (SCCmec) type IV. None belonged to clonal complex (CC) 8, the CC associated with USA300; 57% were sequence type (ST) 1, and 26% were ST30; 61% were clindamycin resistant. In the prospective collection, 42 isolates were PVL+ and carried SCCmec type IV; 83.3% were ST1, 9.5% were ST30, and 7.1% were ST8. Among 120 prospective isolates, 57.5% were clindamycin resistant. CA-MRSA epidemiology in southwestern Alaska differs from that in the lower 48 states; ST8 strains were rarely identified and clindamycin resistance was common.
Highlights
Staphylococcus aureus is a common cause of skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs), endovascular infections, pneumonia, septic arthritis, endocarditis, osteomyelitis, foreign-body infections, and sepsis [1]
Six were from the 1996 investigation outbreak collected from January 6, 1997, through January 6, 1998, and 30 from the 2000 outbreak collected from April 17, 2000, through September 20, 2000
staphylococcal chromosomal cassette mec (SCCmec) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) typing were performed on the retrospective collection isolates
Summary
Staphylococcus aureus is a common cause of skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs), endovascular infections, pneumonia, septic arthritis, endocarditis, osteomyelitis, foreign-body infections, and sepsis [1]. We examined the susceptibility to clindamycin of MRSA isolates from the prospective collection stratified by patient age groups (0–2, 3–12, 13–20, 21–49, >50 years of age). Demographic and clinical characteristics for 120 patients infected with MRSA isolates in the prospective collection, southwestern Alaska, 2004–2006*
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