A hospital-acquired outbreak of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection initiated by a surgeon carrier

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has become an important hospital-acquired pathogen, infection with which often leads to major morbi dity acid mortality. The principal mode of transmission for MRSA is transfe r of the organism from a carrier or infected patient to uninfected patients by the: hands or clothing of staff. From January 16 1997 to April 2 1997, five patients who had undergone open-heart surgery in a hospital located in northern Taiwan, developed surgical wound infections and mediastinitis cau sed by MRSA. All patients were hospitalized in two adjacent surgical intens ive care units (ICUs) following their respective operations. Consequently: the hospital's infection control team commenced investigation of the outbre ak. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) has been shown to be a good tec hnique for epidemiological typing. By analysing cultures taken from staff b y PFGE, it was demonstrated that this outbreak was most likely to be initia ted by a surgeon with MRSA carriage. After elimination of the carrier state using topical mupirocin treatment, the outbreak was controlled without fur ther incident (C) 2001 The Hospital infection Society.