Molecular epidemiology of environmental MRSA at an equine teaching hospital: introduction, circulation and maintenance

The role that environmental contamination might play as a reservoir and a possible source of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) for patients and personnel at equine veterinary hospitals remains undefined, as the environment has only been monitored during outbreaks or for short period...

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Autores principales: van Balen, Joany, Mowery, Jade, Piraino-Sandoval, Micha, Nava-Hoet, Rocio C, Kohn, Catherine, Hoet, Armando E
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3974172/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24641543
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1297-9716-45-31
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author van Balen, Joany
Mowery, Jade
Piraino-Sandoval, Micha
Nava-Hoet, Rocio C
Kohn, Catherine
Hoet, Armando E
author_facet van Balen, Joany
Mowery, Jade
Piraino-Sandoval, Micha
Nava-Hoet, Rocio C
Kohn, Catherine
Hoet, Armando E
author_sort van Balen, Joany
collection PubMed
description The role that environmental contamination might play as a reservoir and a possible source of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) for patients and personnel at equine veterinary hospitals remains undefined, as the environment has only been monitored during outbreaks or for short periods. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to determine the monthly presence, distribution, and characteristics of environmental MRSA at an equine hospital, and to establish patterns of contamination over time using molecular epidemiological analyses. For this purpose, a yearlong active MRSA surveillance was performed targeting the environment and incoming patients. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing, SCCmec typing, PFGE typing, and dendrographic analysis were used to characterize and analyze these isolates. Overall, 8.6% of the surfaces and 5.8% of the horses sampled were positive for MRSA. The most common contaminated surfaces were: computers, feed-water buckets, and surgery tables-mats. Ninety percent of the isolates carried SCCmec type IV, and 62.0% were classified as USA500. Molecular analysis showed that new pulsotypes were constantly introduced into the hospital throughout the year. However, maintenance of strains in the environment was also observed when unique clones were detected for 2 consecutive months on the same surfaces. Additionally, pulsotypes were circulating throughout several areas and different contact surfaces of the hospital. Based on these results, it is evident that MRSA is constantly introduced and frequently found in the equine hospital environment, and that some contact surfaces could act as “hot-spots”. These contaminated surfaces should be actively targeted for strict cleaning and disinfection as well as regular monitoring.
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spelling pubmed-39741722014-04-04 Molecular epidemiology of environmental MRSA at an equine teaching hospital: introduction, circulation and maintenance van Balen, Joany Mowery, Jade Piraino-Sandoval, Micha Nava-Hoet, Rocio C Kohn, Catherine Hoet, Armando E Vet Res Research The role that environmental contamination might play as a reservoir and a possible source of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) for patients and personnel at equine veterinary hospitals remains undefined, as the environment has only been monitored during outbreaks or for short periods. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to determine the monthly presence, distribution, and characteristics of environmental MRSA at an equine hospital, and to establish patterns of contamination over time using molecular epidemiological analyses. For this purpose, a yearlong active MRSA surveillance was performed targeting the environment and incoming patients. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing, SCCmec typing, PFGE typing, and dendrographic analysis were used to characterize and analyze these isolates. Overall, 8.6% of the surfaces and 5.8% of the horses sampled were positive for MRSA. The most common contaminated surfaces were: computers, feed-water buckets, and surgery tables-mats. Ninety percent of the isolates carried SCCmec type IV, and 62.0% were classified as USA500. Molecular analysis showed that new pulsotypes were constantly introduced into the hospital throughout the year. However, maintenance of strains in the environment was also observed when unique clones were detected for 2 consecutive months on the same surfaces. Additionally, pulsotypes were circulating throughout several areas and different contact surfaces of the hospital. Based on these results, it is evident that MRSA is constantly introduced and frequently found in the equine hospital environment, and that some contact surfaces could act as “hot-spots”. These contaminated surfaces should be actively targeted for strict cleaning and disinfection as well as regular monitoring. BioMed Central 2014 2014-03-19 /pmc/articles/PMC3974172/ /pubmed/24641543 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1297-9716-45-31 Text en Copyright © 2014 van Balen et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
van Balen, Joany
Mowery, Jade
Piraino-Sandoval, Micha
Nava-Hoet, Rocio C
Kohn, Catherine
Hoet, Armando E
Molecular epidemiology of environmental MRSA at an equine teaching hospital: introduction, circulation and maintenance
title Molecular epidemiology of environmental MRSA at an equine teaching hospital: introduction, circulation and maintenance
title_full Molecular epidemiology of environmental MRSA at an equine teaching hospital: introduction, circulation and maintenance
title_fullStr Molecular epidemiology of environmental MRSA at an equine teaching hospital: introduction, circulation and maintenance
title_full_unstemmed Molecular epidemiology of environmental MRSA at an equine teaching hospital: introduction, circulation and maintenance
title_short Molecular epidemiology of environmental MRSA at an equine teaching hospital: introduction, circulation and maintenance
title_sort molecular epidemiology of environmental mrsa at an equine teaching hospital: introduction, circulation and maintenance
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3974172/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24641543
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1297-9716-45-31
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