Abstract
Colonization of health care workers with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been an important route of dispersion and infection of MRSA and has been implicated in epidemic outbreaks. The objective of the present study was to assess prevalence of MRSA colonization in the anterior nares of health care personnel at the intensive care unit (ICUs) of three hospital facilities in Quito, Ecuador. The prevalence of MRSA in specimens from all ICU health care workers of three hospitals was measured by using a real-time PCR assay and CHROMagar MRSA. The prevalence of MRSA among the three health care facilities was 2.4%. The prevalence of MRSA colonization was relatively low compared to other studies and showed no differences between hospital facilities.
Highlights
Colonization of health care workers with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been an important route of dispersion and infection of MRSA and has been implicated in epidemic outbreaks
Even though comparisons between studies are difficult because of the big differences in numbers of participants, low rates of MRSA colonization in the Intensive care units (ICUs) of three health care facilities (3/109, 1/57, 1/44) were similar to the frequencies found in other ICU studies in Italy (0/27) and France (2/68) [3,5]
The frequency of MRSA from this study was congruent with the average reported in the literature (154/3309; 4.7%) for ICUs [1]
Summary
Colonization of health care workers with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been an important route of dispersion and infection of MRSA and has been implicated in epidemic outbreaks. The objective of the present study was to assess prevalence of MRSA colonization in the anterior nares of health care personnel at the intensive care unit (ICUs) of three hospital facilities in Quito, Ecuador. Health care workers are an important link between hospitals, nursing homes, and communities in nosocomial infections [1] They have been traditionally considered as vectors of nosocomial pathogens. Intensive care units (ICUs) are among the hospital departments that have reported high levels of MRSA colonization in patients and health care workers [2,3]. The objective of the present study was to assess the frequency of MRSA colonization in the anterior nares of ICU health care personnel in three hospital facilities in Quito, Ecuador. Anterior nares were used in this study because they have been reported as one of the sites with the highest sensitivity for detecting MRSA colonization [4]
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