• Enferm. Infecc. Microbiol. Clin. · Oct 2007

    [Environmental contamination during a vancomycin-resistant Enterococci outbreak at a hospital in Argentina].

    • Mariela Soledad Zárate, Ana Gales, Liliana Jordá-Vargas, Diego Yahni, Silvia Relloso, Pablo Bonvehi, Jussimara Monteiro, Antonio Campos-Pignatari, and Jorgelina Smayevsky.
    • Laboratorio de Bacteriología, Micología y Parasitología. Centro de Educación Médica e Investigaciones Clínicas Norberto Quirno (CEMIC). Capital Federal. Buenos Aires. Argentina. sole_z@hotmail.com
    • Enferm. Infecc. Microbiol. Clin. 2007 Oct 1;25(8):508-12.

    IntroductionVancomycin-resistant enterococci isolates (VRE) have caused numerous outbreaks in intensive care units (ICUs). A contaminated hospital environment, the hands of health care workers (HCW), and carrier patients may play important roles in perpetuating the chain of transmission in these outbreaks. The aims of this study were to report the first VRE outbreak in our center and assess the role of environmental contamination and HCW hands in the spread of new cases of enterococcal infection.Material And MethodBetween August and December 2003, surveillance cultures were performed with samples from all patients (n = 113) admitted to the ICU, as well as cultures of samples from the environment (n = 69) and HCW hands (n = 23).ResultsEighteen clinical samples from 8 patients and 7 environmental samples yielded Enterococcus faecium (24 strains) and E. avium (1 strain). VRE was not detected on HCW hands. All the VRE isolates belonged to a single clone and carried the vanA gene.ConclusionEnvironmental contamination provides an important reservoir for future outbreaks of VRE, perpetuating transmission of the microorganism in the hospital setting.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…