Tracking Staphylococcus aureus in the intensive care unit using Whole-Genome Sequencing

Dancer, Stephanie J.; Adams, Claire E.; Smith, Jennifer; Pichon, Bruno; Kearns, Angela; Morrison, Donald

Abstract

Background: Staphylococcus aureus remains an important bacterial pathogen worldwide. This study utilized known staphylococcal epidemiology to track S. aureus between different ecological reservoirs in one ten-bed intensive care unit (ICU).

Methods: Selected hand-touch surfaces, staff hands and air were systematically screened ten times during ten months, with patients screened throughout the study. S. aureus isolates were subjected to spa typing and epidemiological analyses, followed by wholegenome sequencing (WGS) to provide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data.

Results: Multiple transmission pathways between patients and reservoirs were investigated. There were 34 transmission events, of which 29 were highly related (

Citation

Dancer, S. J., Adams, C. E., Smith, J., Pichon, B., Kearns, A., & Morrison, D. (2019). Tracking Staphylococcus aureus in the intensive care unit using Whole-Genome Sequencing. Journal of Hospital Infection, 103(1), 13-20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2019.04.016

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 22, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Apr 27, 2019
• Publication Date: 2019-09
• Deposit Date: May 1, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 28, 2020
• Journal: Journal of Hospital Infection
• Print ISSN: 0195-6701
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 103
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 13-20
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2019.04.016
• Keywords: Microbiology (medical); Infectious Diseases; General Medicine
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1767726
• Contract Date: Jul 8, 2019