Epidemic of hospital-acquired infection due to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in major Victorian hospitals.

During 1979, the Victorian Health Commission received reports of a rising proportion of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates from an increasing number of institutions. At least 31 metropolitan hospitals were involved, and six of these reported MRSA totaling between 20% and 40% of all Staph. aureus isolates. Since that time, the problem has continued. In some university teaching hospitals, strains of MRSA now cause from 200 to 300 new cases of hospital-acquired infection each year. Sepsis occurs mainly in patients who underwent surgery, premature neonates and in the immunocompromised or debilitated patients. The organism involved is multiresistant. Recent isolates show increasing resistance, particularly against gentamicin, chloramphenicol and, more lately, fusidic acid and rifampicin. Only vancomycin can be relied upon for empirical treatment. There is concern that increasing use of vancomycin will select vancomycin-resistant strains of MRSA, so that, in the near future, there may no longer be any effective antibiotic therapy against hospital staphylococci.