MRSA Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about MRSA, including details on methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, hospitals, infection, antibiotic resistance, superbugs.

Evolving EMRSA-15 epidemic in Singapore hospitals.

Hsu LY, Loomba-Chlebicka N, Koh YL, Tan TY, Krishnan P, Lin RT, Tee NW, Fisher DA, Koh TH

Department of Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 5 Lower Kent Ridge Road, and Singapore General Hospital, Singapore. liyang_hsu@yahoo.com

The aim of this study was to determine the extent of EMRSA-15 spread in hospitals in Singapore. Molecular analysis of 197 non-duplicate meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates collected from five acute care public hospitals in Singapore in May 2005 revealed that 66 (33.5%) were EMRSA-15 while 121 (61.4%) belonged to the endemic multidrug-resistant ST239 clone. Median and mode vancomycin MIC for both major clones of health-care-associated MRSA were relatively high at 2.0 microg ml-1. Subsequent laboratory surveillance data collected from the first half of 2006 confirmed increasing numbers of the EMRSA-15 clone--ranging from 25.0 to 66.1% of all MRSA isolated in local hospitals--replacing the ST239 clone island-wide.

Published 22 February 2007 in J Med Microbiol, 56: 376-9.
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