INTRODUCTION Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) have emerged as one of the major nosocomial antimicrobial-resistant pathogens globally. In this article, we describe the epidemiology of VRE in Singaporean public hospitals in the 5 years following the major local VRE outbreak in 2005. MATERIALS AND METHODS A passive laboratory surveillance programme identified non-duplicate VRE isolates fro...

Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) are becoming widespread worldwide, and the rapid identification of VRE carriers from surveillance cultures is crucial for the efficient control of their spread. We assessed a new selective chromogenic medium, chromID VRE (bioMérieux, France), that enhanced the isolation and presumptive identification of VRE directly from rectal swabs and reduced unnecessar...

Introduction: Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) are undoubtedly less virulent as compared to other common pathogenic bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus. However the presence of VRE is a matter of concern, as VRE infections are associated with high mortality, particularly in immunocompromised patients. The resistant gene is transferable to Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (M...

Bacteria causing infections in hospitalized patients are increasingly antibiotic resistant. Classical infection control practices are only partially effective at preventing spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria within hospitals. Because the density of intestinal colonization by the highly antibiotic-resistant bacterium vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) can exceed 10(9) organisms per gra...

lated from sputum samples obtained from 7 patients were not considered to represent systemic infection. Five (16%) of the patients with VRE bacteremia had polymicrobial infections with Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (2 patients), Escherichia coli (1), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (1), and Staphylococcus aureus (1). Most patients (71%) were neutropenic (absolute neutrophil count, !500 cells/mL) when the...

In a recently published article, Peltroche-Llacsahuanga and colleagues (2) compared the performance of two chromogenic media, i.e., chromID VRE (bioMérieux, Marcy l’Etoile, France) and CHROMagar VRE (Chromagar, Paris, France). Screening 259 stool samples for vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), they detected a total of 55 vancomycinresistant Enterococcus faecium isolates, 54 of them harborin...

INTRODUCTION Clostridium difficile-associated disease (CDAD) is treated using antibiotics, which often leads to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE). This study estimated the impact of a non antibiotic treatment for CDAD on VRE prevalence. METHODS A previously published model describing the impact of in-hospital antibiotic use on VRE pr...

BACKGROUND Control of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE) in European hospitals is hampered because of widespread asymptomatic carriage of VRE by healthy Europeans. In 2000, our hospital (The University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands) was confronted with a large outbreak of VRE. INTERVENTION On the basis of genotyping (by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis), epidem...

STUDY OBJECTIVES (1) To determine in our ICU the incidence of vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE) colonization in mechanically ventilated patients without a history of VRE infection or colonization; and (2) to determine the risk factors and outcome variables associated with VRE colonization in these patients. DESIGN A prospective cohort study conducted between January 1996 and March 1998....