Abstract
Clinical isolates (n = 389) of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) recovered from 371 patients between January 2003 and June 2004 at the three major public hospitals on the island of Majorca, Spain were studied. The clonal relatedness of MRSA isolates was determined by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) after digestion with SmaI. During the study period, MRSA was found in 31% of patients with S. aureus-positive cultures. PFGE analysis identified three predominant clones, affecting 94% of the patients. The three clones had been detected since 1999 in one hospital, and were designated as clones A, B and C. Whereas clones A and B (multidrug-resistant) were related to the two most prevalent clones in Spain at this time, clone C was identical to EMRSA-15, currently one of the most common MRSA clones in UK hospitals and also detected in other countries, but rarely in Spanish hospitals. This imported epidemic clone was detected in c. 10% of patients admitted to one of the three hospitals in 2002, but its prevalence has increased significantly (32% of the patients investigated in the three hospitals in the present study), and this clone also accounted for 44% of the isolates from non-hospitalised patients. Even though EMRSA-15 showed the least multidrug resistance of the three major clones, it was apparently more virulent, since it was associated significantly (p 0.001) with bacteraemia, and positive blood cultures were documented for 21% of the patients infected by this clone, compared with only 10% and 7% of patients infected with clones A and B, respectively.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.