Prevalence of colonisation and resistance patterns of vancomycin-resistant enterococci in healthy, non-hospitalised persons in Switzerland.

In order to obtain data about the prevalence and the resistance profiles of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) in the community, we investigated fecal samples of employees (n = 1026) from food processing companies of different Swiss cantons. The susceptibility of the isolated VRE-strains against penicillin, ampicillin, tetracyclin, ciprofloxacin, chloramphenicol, streptomycin and gentamicin as well as the minimal inhibitory concentrations (MIC) for vancomycin and teicoplanin were determined by agar diffusion and microbroth dilution, respectively. The type of vancomycin-resistance (vanA, vanB, vanC1, -C2 or -C3) was confirmed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). A ratio of 50 samples out of 1026 (4.9%) was found VRE-positive, all of the isolated strains carried the vanA-resistance gene. Compared to recent publications from other European countries, these results represent a rather high prevalence of VRE-carriers in the community.