Germ of the Month - May 2005

To help you in your efforts to educate your staff and make it fun and worthwhile, Mölnlycke Health Care is working to support you in those efforts. We hope you are enjoying our little family of germs as much as we enjoy bringing them to you.

This month we would like to reintroduce you to Staphon ( Staphylococcus aureus). Our Staphon is such a naughty boy. Staphylococcus aureus was the most common cause of nosocomial infections reported in the National Nosocomial Surveillance System between 1990 to 1996.¹ The leading cause of nosocomial pneumonia and surgical site infections² and the second leading cause of nosocomial bloodstream infections , S. aureus also causes community-acquired infections (e.g., osteomyelitis and septic arthritis, skin infections, endocarditis, and meningitis). Methicillin-resistant strains of S. aureus (MRSA) are common. First reported in the 1960s³, MRSA has become increasingly prevalent since the 1980s^4,5 and is now endemic in many hospitals and even epidemic in some, with resistance in approximately 50% of all S. aureus infections.⁶

Our reason for all that we do is to provide you with the very best in product and support.

 

 

 

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1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance System report: data summary from October 1986-April 1996. Atlanta (GA): U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; 1996.
2. Ibid.
3. Barrett FF, McGehee RF, Finland M. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus at Boston City hospital. N Engl J Med 1968;279:441.
4. Boyce JM. Increasing prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in the United States. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 1990;11:639-42.
5. Panlilio AL, Culver DH, Gaynes RP, Banerjee S, Henderson TS, Tolson JS, et al. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in U.S. hospitals, 1975-1991. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 1992;13:582-6.
6. Ibid.