Patients exposed to vancomycin-resistant enterococci during in-hospital outbreaks in a low endemic setting: a proposal for risk-based screening.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The optimal extent of screening of contact patients (CoPat) after exposure to patients infected or colonized with vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) remains controversial.

Methods

We retrospectively developed a new risk stratification for screening patients exposed to VRE, based on data from three outbreaks-two with Enterococcus faecium vanB and one with Enterococcus faecium vanA involving 1096 CoPat-in a low endemic setting. We classified them into four risk groups: three on environmental exposure, one by healthcare exposure: high (sharing the same room/bathroom with a VRE-colonized patient), medium (hospitalization in the same room after a VRE-colonized patient's discharge until terminal disinfection including ultraviolet C (UVc)-disinfection), low (hospital

SUBMITTER: Buchler AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9008949 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature