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Limited evidence of nosocomial methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus transmission in a low-prevalence tertiary care centre: a five-year genomic epidemiology study
By Aila Caplunik-Pratsch, Bärbel Kieninger, Stefan Hansch and 7 others.
Abstract
Background
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has traditionally been considered a nosocomial pathogen. However, declining MRSA prevalence in many European countries has raised questions about the relative contribution of nosocomial transmission to MRSA epidemiology in low-prevalence healthcare settings. We aimed to characterize MRSA population structure and transmission dynamics in a German tertiary care hospital.
Methods
We conducted a retrospective genomic epidemiology study at a tertiary care hospital in Germany, including first MRSA isolates per patient and year collected between 2020 and 2024. Whole-genome sequencing and core genome multi-locus sequence typing were performed. Clusters were defined using a threshold of ≤10 allelic differences and assessed using epidemiological data.