Prevalence and pattern of antibiotic resistance of Staphylococcus aureus isolated from door handles and other points of contact in public hospitals in Ghana

Abstract

BackgroundStudies have implicated Staphylococcus aureus as the leading cause of septicemia in the Tamale metropolis of Ghana. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and antibiotic susceptibility of S. aureus and Methicillin Resistant S. aureus (MRSA) in the environments of three hospitals in Ghana.MethodsA total of 120 swab samples were taken from door handles, stair railings and other points of contact at Tamale Teaching Hospital, Tamale Central Hospital and Tamale West Hospital. The swab samples were directly plated on Mannitol Salt and Baird Parker agar plates and incubated at 37 °C (± 2) for 18–24 h. An antibiotic susceptibility test was performed using the Clinical Laboratory Standard Institute’s guidelines. Isolates resistant to both cefoxitin and oxacillin were considered to be MRSA.ResultsA total of 47 (39%) positive S. aureus samples were isolated from all three hospitals, of which, eight (17%) were putative MRSA isolates. One MRSA isolate was resistant to all the antibiotics used (cefoxitin, oxacillin, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, tetracycline, ampicillin, streptomycin and sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim). Five of the MRSA isolates were multi-drug resistant, whilst the other three were resistant to only two antibiotics. All the multi-drug resistant MRSA isolates were resistant to at least four antibiotics. The percentage of isolates resistant to oxacillin, ampicillin, ciprofloxacin, tetracycline, streptomycin, erythromycin, and sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim were 17, 13, 9, 28, 89, 13 and 11% respectively.ConclusionThe high multi-drug resistance of MRSA in hospital environments in Ghana reinforces the need for the effective and routine cleaning of door handles in hospitals. Further investigation is required to understand whether S. aureus from door handles could be the possible causes of nosocomial diseases in the hospitals.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13756-017-0203-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Empirical Antibiotic Prescription Pattern among Patients in a Nigerian Tertiary Hospital, is There Evidence of Irrationality?

“…The udy showed that 39 -90% of seven common bacterial isolates were resistant to Amoxicillin + Clavulanic acid, similar high level of microbial resistance was also observed for Cotrimoxazole [29 -84%], Tetracycline [17 77%], Ceftriaxone [6 -50%] and Genta -40%]. The high level of antibiotic resistance level in this study is comparable to many other studies, though differences exist in the magnitude [58][59][60][61][62].…”

Frequency of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in nose and cellular phone of medical and non-medical personnel of emergency departments of Ghaem hospital in Mashhad city

“…Of course, it is necessary to mention this point that the samples were collected from the community, not healthcare personnel. 21 In a study done by Schultz, 7.6% of the isolates from the nose of training soldiers were identified as MRSA; all of them were sensitive to vancomycin22. Another study on the military population and their families in the United States by Kenner et al, in 2003 showed that 40% of the people had nasal staphylococci and 2% 8 carried MRSA in the nose.…”

“…Also, One MRSA isolate was resistant to all the used antibiotics (cefoxitin, oxacillin, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, tetracycline, ampicillin, streptomycin, and sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim. 21 Investigation of Prevalence and antibiotic resistance pattern of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in the Orthopaedic Hospital in Nigeria by Udobi et al showed resistance pattern of: ampicillin 100%, pefloxacin 90.9%, ceftriaxone 69.7%, gentamicin 54.5%, and ciprofloxacin 51.5%. 30 The study by Anupriya et al revealed that microbial contamination of mobile phones in a tertiary care hospital was 87.3% and 56.4% among health care workers versus non-health care workers, but there was no MRSA.…”

Pathogen population structure can explain hospital outbreaks

“…Long term sources have been associated with infections such as Legionnaires Disease [18], which is often associated with bacterial contamination in water supply systems. Recent studies have begun to elucidate the role of the hospital environment on the existence and persistence of possible nosocomial reservoir populations [19][20][21][22][23][24]. However, these environmental hospital populations violate the assumption that reservoirs are large.…”