SCAN:Portuguese public buses as major MRSA reservoirs

ITQB Scan Seminar

Title: Portuguese public buses as major MRSA reservoirs

Speaker: Teresa Conceição

From: Post. Doc fellow at Molecular Genetics Laboratory

 Abstract:

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a major healthcare associated (HA-MRSA) human pathogen responsible for mild to severe life threatening infections worldwide. Since the mid-1990s, MRSA has also been identified as the etiological agent of infections acquired in the community (CA-MRSA).
Although MRSA rates are stabilizing or even decreasing in several European countries, Portugal continues to show an increasing trend, reaching a nosocomial prevalence of 54.3% in 2011.
Transmission of S. aureus, including MRSA, occurs mainly by direct human-to-human skin contact. However, since S. aureus can survive for long periods on inanimate objects, these may constitute an important reservoir for dissemination.
A recent study from our Laboratory showed that public buses circulating in Oporto, are a major reservoir (26%) of MRSA of nosocomial origin showing that the prevalent nosocomial MRSA clone (EMRSA-15) was escaping from the hospital to the community environment (1). The study was extended to public buses circulating in another urban area in the country, Lisbon.
1.    Simões RR, Aires-de-Sousa M, Conceição T, Antunes F, da Costa PM, de Lencastre H. 2011. High prevalence of EMRSA-15 in Portuguese public buses: a worrisome finding. PLoS One 6:e17630.