Speakers - WNSC 2024

Abstract

Background: Healthcare workers are susceptible to colonization by multiresistant bacteria, which can increase the risk of outbreaks.

Methods: Samples were collected from healthcare workers' nasopharynx, hands, and lab coats. The phenotypic identification was carried out using a VITEK®2 rapid test system. PCR tests for the mecA gene and the sequencing of the amplicons were performed. Staphylococcus epidermidis and Staphylococcus aureus phylogenies were reconstructed using the Bayesian inference.

Results: A total of 225 healthcare workers participated in this study. Of these, 21.3% were male and 78.7% female. S. epidermidis and S. aureus showed high resistance to penicillin, ampicillin, erythromycin, tetracycline, and cefoxitin. The prevalence of methicillin-resistant S. aureus was 3.16%, and methicillin-resistant S. epidermidis was 100%. Multilocus sequence typing identified 23 new S. epidermidis sequence types and one new allele and sequence type for S. aureus. The frequency of methicillin-resistant S. epidermidis in nursing and chemotherapy technicians as a percentage of the total number of healthcare workers was 5.8–3.1%, while the frequency of methicillin-resistant S. aureus in chemotherapy technicians and biomedical, as a percentage of the total number of healthcare workers was 4.2–8.9%%.

Conclusions: The healthcare workers at the city’s blood bank, even when taking the necessary care with their hands, body, and clothes, harbor methicillin-resistant S. aureus and S. epidermidis sequence types, which, as a potential source of multidrug-resistant bacteria, can contribute to nosocomial infections among hematological patients.