This study highlights – in a concrete way – the importance of infection control including effective implementation of hand-washing, which is the most effective way to control MRSA
- Sharon Peacock
Researchers from the University of Cambridge have used genome sequencing to monitor how the spread of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) occurs in under-resourced hospitals. By pinpointing how and when MRSA was transmitted over a three-month period at a hospital in northeast Thailand, the researchers are hoping their results will support evidence-based policies around infection control.
MRSA is a common cause of hospital-acquired infections, with the largest burden of infections occurring in under-resourced hospitals in the developing world. Whereas genome sequencing has previously been applied in well-resourced clinical settings to track the spread of MRSA, how transmission occurs in resource-limited settings is unknown. In a new study published in the journal Genome Research, researchers used genome sequencing to understand the spread of MRSA in a hospital with high transmission rates.
“In under-resourced hospitals and clinics, formal screening procedures for MRSA are not in place,” said Professor Sharon Peacock of the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, who led the research. “Filling gaps in our understanding of how MRSA spreads in such settings is important, since this not only highlights the problem but also provides direction to interventions that tackle this and other hospital-based pathogens.”
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Image: Micrograph of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)
Credit: NIAID
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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