Absence of patient-to-patient intrahospital transmission of Staphylococcus aureus as determined by whole-genome sequencing.

ABSTRACT: Nosocomial transmission of pathogens is a major health care challenge. The increasing spread of antibiotic-resistant strains represents an ongoing threat to public health. Previous Staphylococcus aureus transmission studies have focused on transmission of S. aureus between asymptomatic carriers or used low-resolution typing methods such as multilocus sequence typing (MLST) or spa typing. To identify patient-to-patient intrahospital transmission using high-resolution genetic analysis, we sequenced the genomes of a consecutive set of 398 S. aureus isolates from sterile-site infections. The S. aureus strains were collected from four hospitals in the Houston Methodist Hospital System over a 6-month period. Importantly, we discovered no evidence of transmission of S. aureus between patients wit

SUBMITTER: Long SW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4196229 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature