Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) as normal flora of the intestine in patients at a tertiary care hospital.

There has been a rapid increase in the incidence of infection and colonization with vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) in American and European hospitals in the last six years, with fecal carriage reported to be as high as 86% on some services. In order to determine the frequency of VRE as normal flora of the intestine in Saudi patients, microbiological analysis of stool specimens from 4276 patients from a tertiary care referral hospital was performed. VRE, identified as Enterococcus faecium, was found in six patients. None of the patients had any clinical disease associated with VRE. Five were hospitalized patients, four with severe underlying diseases; five had a history of prior antimicrobial therapy with broad-spectrum antibodies and two of them were treated with vancomycin.