Enterococci are associated with both community- and hospital-acquired infections. Even though they do not cause severe systemic inflammatory responses, such as septic shock, enterococci present a therapeutic challenge because of their resistance to a vast array of antimicrobial drugs, including cell-wall active agents, all commercially available aminoglycosides, penicillin and ampicillin, and v...

Historically, most clinical microbiology laboratories report that 80 to 90% of enterococci are Enterococcus faecalis, whereas E. faecium accounts for 5 to 10% of isolates. At our medical center from 1993 to 2002, we evaluated the percentages of E. faecium among all enterococcal isolates and the percentages of E. faecium isolates that were vancomycin resistant. Over this 10-year period, the perc...

Josamycin, a new macrolide antibiotic, was compared with ampicillin, erythromycin, and clindamycin in vitro against 25 isolates each of pneumococci, enterococci, Staphylococcus aureus, S. epidermidis, and nonenterococcal hemolytic streptococci and against 25 anaerobes including 10 Bacteroides fragilis. Minimal inhibitory concentration and minimal bactericidal concentration data were obtained fo...

The selective pressure resulting from the extensive use of antibiotics over the last 50 years has led to the emergence of bacterial resistance and to the dissemination of resistance genes among pathogenic microorganisms. Consequently, we are now at serious risk of suffering intractable, life-threatening infections. The progressive emergence and rapid dissemination of resistance to glycopeptides...

Nosocomial pathogens such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE) are the cause of significant morbidity and mortality among hospital patients. It is important to be able to assess the efficacy of control measures using data on patient outcomes. In this paper, we describe methods for analysing such data using patient-level stochastic mode...

Daptomycin is the only antibiotic with in vitro bactericidal activity against vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) that is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Data on the potential emergence of daptomycin nonsusceptibility among enterococci remain limited. We systematically reviewed the published literature for reports of isolates of enterococci that were daptomycin nonsuscep...

Whilst the potential impact on beach users from microorganisms in water has received considerable attention, there has been relatively little investigation into microbial contaminants in sand. Thirty three beaches across Portugal were analyzed during a five year period (2006-2010) to determine the presence of yeasts, pathogenic fungi, dermatophytes, total coliforms, Escherichia coli and intesti...

Enterococci are Gram-positive, catalase-negative, non-spore-forming, facultative anaerobic bacteria, which usually inhabit the alimentary tract of humans in addition to being isolated from environmental and animal sources. They are able to survive a range of stresses and hostile environments, including those of extreme temperature (5-65 degrees C), pH (4.5-10.0) and high NaCl concentration, ena...

The in vitro susceptibility of group D streptococci (enterococci) to ampicillin was studied comparing the results obtained in Mueller-Hinton broth (MHB) with those obtained in normal human serum (NHS). The rate of enterococcal killing was consistently faster in NHS than in MHB at equivalent ampicillin concentrations. Whereas an increasing media pH appeared to decrease the susceptibility of ente...