OBJECTIVE To investigate the genotypic diversity of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolated from pigs and retail foods from different geographical areas in China and further to study the routes and rates of transmission of this pathogen from animals to food. METHODS Seventy-one MRSA isolates were obtained from pigs and retail foods and then characterized by multi-locus seq...

BACKGROUND Nasal carriage with Staphylococcus aureus is a common risk factor for invasive infections, indicating the necessity to monitor prevalent strains, particularly in the vulnerable paediatric population. This surveillance study aims to identify carriage rates, subtypes, antimicrobial susceptibilities and virulence markers of nasal S. aureus isolates collected from children living in the ...

BACKGROUND Studies in several European countries and in North America revealed a frequent nasal colonization of livestock with MRSA CC398 and also in humans with direct professional exposure to colonized animals. The study presented here addresses the question of further transmission to non exposed humans. METHODS After selecting 47 farms with colonized pigs in different regions of Germany we...

OBJECTIVES This study was designed to demonstrate the characteristics of qacA/B-positive Staphylococcus aureus in China. METHODS One hundred and forty-five MRSA and 178 MSSA from clinical specimens from seven hospitals in different regions of China, 70 MRSA from superficial sites of patients and 106 MRSA from environmental samples from an ICU were collected and screened for the presence of th...

The epidemiology of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is continuously changing. Iceland has a low incidence of MRSA. A "search and destroy" policy (screening patients with defined risk factors and attempting eradication in carriers) has been implemented since 1991. Clinical and microbiological data of all MRSA patients from the years 2000 to 2008 were collected prospectively. I...

This study characterized EMRSA-15 isolates obtained from patients in Kuwait hospitals for their genotypic relatedness, antibiotic resistance and carriage of virulence genes using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), coagulase serotyping, SCCmec subtyping, spa typing, multilocus sequence typing and DNA microarray. The isolates were resistant to trimethoprim (75.6%), ciprofloxacin (29.7%), er...

BACKGROUND Although livestock-associated ST398 methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been widely reported in different geographic regions, MRSA carriage studies among healthy pigs in Portugal are very limited. METHODS AND FINDINGS In total, 101 swine nasal samples from two Portuguese farms were screened for MRSA. In addition five swine workers (including one veterinary and on...

A total of 2,662 samples, collected from March to September 2009 in Switzerland, were tested for the presence of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The collection comprised nasal swabs from 148 pig farmers, 133 veterinarians, 179 slaughterhouse employees, 800 pigs, 300 calves, 400 cattle, 100 pooled neck skin swabs from chicken carcasses, and 460 food samples of animal origin. M...

BACKGROUND Community-genotype methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CG-MRSA) clones are a global concern due to their resistance and increased virulence and their ability to cause infections both hospitalized patients and healthy people in the community. Here, we characterize 32 isolates of a new CG-MRSA clone. These isolates were identified in four cities in Colombia, South America. M...