Prevalence of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) among Staphylococcus aureus collection at Sebha medical center

The prevalence of multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus has increased during the last few years in healthcare facilities, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus (MRSA) in particular has emerged as a serious nosocomial pathogen because it is difficult to destroy and treat. Therefore, this study was carried on to find out the frequency of MRSA among S. aureus isolates as well as to study their susceptibility profile. In this study, 43 strains of S. aureus were recovered from different departments at Sebha medical center and their antibiotic resistance profile was studied using Kirby Bauer disc diffusion method. Out of all 43 isolates, 16% were detected as MRSA using cefoxitin disk test. The strains that are resistant to erythromycin were further tested for inducible clindamycin resistance (ICR) using D-test. In this study, two strains showed ICR phenotype. While all isolates were 100% sensitive to vancomycin, the majority of isolates were resistant to ß-lactam group antibiotics. We observed that 14% of all isolates were resistant to ß-lactamase inhibitor. The response of S. aureus isolates to other antibiotics e.g. quinolone, aminoglycosides, tetracycline and macrolides was variable. In our study, it seemed to be vancomycin is the only antibiotic that still keeping its potency and it can be used for treatment of infections caused by multidrug-resistant MRSA.