Spread of a methicillin-resistant and multiresistant epidemic clone of Staphylococcus aureus in Argentina

One hundred forty-eight recent methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates collected from 13 hospitals in Argentina were examined for antibiotic susceptibility and clonal type, using hybridization with DNA pro bes specific for mecA and Tn554, and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE ) of chromosomal SmaI digests. The majority of the isolates (62.2%) shared the common PFGE B pattern and carried variants of mecA and Tn554 polymorphs characteristic of an MRSA clone widely spread in Brazilian hospitals. Simi larly to the Brazilian isolates, the MRSA clone recovered in the Argentinia n hospitals (XI::B::B) and its close relatives (XI::B'::B, XI::AA::B, XI::M ::B, XI::omega omega::B, and III::W::B) showed susceptibility to spectinomy cin and resistance to numerous antibacterial agents, including beta-lactams , tetracycline, aminoglycosides, macrolides, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, ciprofloxacin, and fosfomycin, and more than 60% of the isolates were also resistant to chloramphenicol and rifampin. The XI::B::B MRSA clone represe nted the majority of isolates recovered in most of the hospitals, nine of w hich were located in the city of Buenos Aires, three in the province of Bue nos Aires, and one in the province of Tucuman, 1,312 km northwest of the ci ty of Buenos Aires. The observations document further geographic expansion of this South American MRSA clone across national boundaries.