Researchers studying the epidemiology of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus found infants often develop infections before colonization is recognized or after undergoing decolonization efforts, according to a study in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.
Researchers examined medical records of 3,536 neonates in a university hospital-affiliated neonatal intensive care unit between April 2007 and December 2011.
Two percent of those patients had a positive MRSA culture, and 83.7 percent of those cases were acquired in the NICU.
Twenty-six percent of patients with positive MRSA cultures developed an infection, and 42 percent of those patients developed an infection before they were identified as MRSA-colonized. Half of the patients who remained in the NICU for at least 21 days were re-colonized.
Thirty-seven neonates underwent decolonization, but 16 percent of them developed a subsequent infection.
Researchers identified 14 different MRSA strains, with USA300 being the most common, responsible for 31 percent of the infections.
Researchers suggest current strategies to curb healthcare-associated infections are inadequate, as evidenced by MRSA infections developing both before identifying colonization and after decolonization attempts. They suggest future efforts should focus on improving detection and decolonization methods and identifying modes of infection transmission.
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