High prevalence of MRSA in Portuguese buses

Oeiras, 03.03.2011

Public buses in Oporto seem to be an important reservoir of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) of nosocomial origin, providing evidence that the major hospital-associated MRSA clone in Portugal is escaping from the primary ecological niche of hospitals to the community environment. This is the conclusion of a study by ITQB researchers from the Lab of Molecular Genetics of ITQB and collaborators, now published in PLOS one.

The handrails of public buses circulating in Oporto were screened for the presence of MRSA, which was confirmed for 26% of the buses tested. Molecular characterization of the isolated strains showed that most isolates correspond to a single clone and exhibit the characteristics of the pandemic EMRSA-15, currently the major lineage circulating in Portuguese hospitals, namely in the Oporto region.

In the article, researchers suggest that “infection control measures are urgently warranted to limit the spread of EMRSA-15 to the general population and future studies are required to assess the eventual increase of MRSA in the Portuguese community, which so far remains low.”

Original Article

PLoS ONE 6(3): e17630. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0017630

High prevalence of EMRSA-15 in Portuguese public buses: a worrisome finding

Roméo Rocha Simões1,2, Marta Aires-de-Sousa3, Teresa Conceição1, Filipa Antunes2, Paulo Martins da Costa2,4, and Hermínia de Lencastre1,5

1Laboratory of Molecular Genetics, Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica, Oeiras, Portugal;
2Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas de Abel Salazar, Universidade do Porto, Oporto, Portugal;
3Escola Superior de Saúde da Cruz Vermelha Portuguesa, Lisbon, Portugal;
4CIIMAR - Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental do Porto, Oporto, Portugal;
5Laboratory of Microbiology, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY10065, USA.