Nasal Carriage Servey Essay examples

Touching objects, such as public phones or doorknobs, that have MRSA bacteria on the surface.

MRSA, or methacillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus, is a staph infection that is resistant to many antibiotics that are used to cure staph infections. According to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, MRSA is the most common cause of skin infections and in some cases if not treated can become as severe as sepsis which can be life threatening. (Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, 2016, Para 1) MRSA is spread from skin to skin contact and once it has infected the host, and becomes more severe it has the ability to spread into the bloodstream, joints, bones and even organs. Severe cases of MRSA are typically seen in health care facilities. (Jatin M. Vyas, 2016, Para 4) Along with improper hand hygiene being a mode of transmission, patients are also able to contract the infection by coming in contact with contaminated bed linens, the bed or medical equipment.(CDC, 2016, Para

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a harmful and virulent antibiotic resistant bacterium that is a major concern in most American hospitals. Modern scientists are aiming to discover effective prevention methods for MRSA in hospitals, so productive prevention guidelines can be created. Clinical microbiologists such as K. Nguyen, J. Cepeda, and M. Struelens all conducted clinical trials in separate American hospitals. They employed different MRSA inhibition techniques, such as hand hygiene, isolation, and MRSA screenings, which were tested on a wide

In order to conduct the skin microflora lab, the materials that were used were: plates of S.aureus, S.epidermidis and S.pyogenes, a DEMO Mannitol Salt agar (MSA) +/- plate, simple stain reagents, 3% hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), plasma, sterile water and swabs, a Phenylethanol agar (PEA) plate, a sterile inoculating loop, a MSA plate and microscope slides.

Infection control is very important in the health care profession. Health care professionals, who do not practice proper infection control, allow themselves to become susceptible to a number of infections. Among the most dreaded of these infections are: hepatitis B (HBV), hepatitis C (HCV), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Another infection which has more recently increased in prevalence is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). These infections are all treated differently. Each infection has its own symptoms, classifications, and incubation periods. These infections are transmitted in very similar fashions, but they do not all target the same population.

S. aureus forms part of the nasal flora of approximately 30% - 40% of the population, and can also be found transiently on the skin and in other areas e.g. mucous membranes, vagina. S. aureus produce lipases and glycerol ester hydrolases which break down lipids in the skin and can also grow in high salt concentrations. These factors facilitate colonisation of the skin.

S. aureus is a Gram-positive coccus where the round cells arranged in irregular grape-like (Greek staphyle) clusters.1 They can both have aerobic and anaerobic respiration and most strains ferment mannitol anaerobically. It is distinguished from other staphylococcal species on the basis of golden (Latin aureum) or white colonies on blood agar and positive results of coagulase, mannitol-fermentation and deoxyribonuclease tests.6 S. aureus is one of the major baterial that can be found on people’s skin and in their nose. Usually it does not cause any harm. But if staphylococcus gets into the body, it will causes skin, soft tissue and bone infections. The infections can be minor or serious that may even lead to death. However, there is one-fourth of healthy people who carry it asymptomatically.2 The main treatment of S. aureus infections are antibiotics and surgical drainage, but the emergence of antibiotic-resistance of S. aureus to penicillin, methicillin and other agents has compromised therapy.2

Infections can occur before, during, or after surgery if certain precautions are not followed (Gordon and Lowy 2008). In a hospital setting, staphylococci infect critically ill patients more so than any other organism because of the way they spread. Generally staphylococci, in particular S. aureus, diffuse by skin-to skin contact between a doctor, nurse, or even visitors (Gordon and Lowy 2008). For instance, a health care provider can potentially contaminate a patient. The same thing applies if a visitor touches a patient who has an infection. Normally, someone who contracts a staphylococcal infection, such as MRSA, can stay hospitalized for up to 10 days (Yamakawa et al 2011). All of those scenarios are daily problems that the hospital as well as the community settings face. Therefore, precautions such as maintaining proper personal protective equipment to protect patients and physicians must be followed. Up to 40% of hospital acquired infections derived from staphylococci, and half of those were S. aureus (Yamakawa et al 2011). However, what makes staphylococci significant pathogens is that several species have become resistant to antibiotics. MRSA is a very prime example of antibiotic resistance to methicillin and penicillin (Yamakawa et al 2011). Consequently, with limited treatments, it becomes extremely difficult to control the spread of infection. The best way to minimize the problem is to properly maintain good hygiene between health care workers, and extending these protocols to visitors and patients (Gordon and Lowy

Some of the cell culture media is red due to the presence of Phenol Red. Phenol Red is used as pH indicator in the media and recognises any changes of the neutral pH (7.4 – 7.8 of Phenol red) to acidic pH values. This allows the individual carrying out the experiment to be aware of any waste contamination in the cell media. If the media turns a yellow colour, this indicates there is contamination or dying cells producing waste products, which have acidic values (pH 6.4 or below) and causes a red/pink to a yellow colour

Prevalence of MRSA colonization is increasing in some community settings, even in patients who lack traditional or any identifiable risk factors for MRSA.1 Surveillance studies have suggested that the colonization rate in the general population varies worldwide, with MSSA nasal carriers making up 20% to 36.4% of the population, and MRSA nasal colonization composing 0.6% to 6% of the population.2

As antibiotic resistance has become a major concern in public health, multi-drug resistant “Staphylococci.aureus” appears to be the most prevalent pathogen that is responsible for nosocomial infection across the globe and recently labelled as a “Super bug”. Staphylococci are Gram-positive, facultative aerobic microorganisms and present mostly transiently on the skin or anterior nares in approximately 20 to 30 % of healthy adult individuals. Among 30 different types of staphylococci which causes infection in human, Staph.aureus is regarded as one the major pathogen in both medicine and food safety. There is a wide variety of infection caused by Staph.aureus and most of them are skin infections and other includes pneumonia, endocarditis, osteomyelitis,

From the SBA plate, get a well formed isolated colony in order to perform gram stain technique for it. After gram staining observe and jot down

The second recommended intervention is to decolonize patients who are confirmed S. aureus nasal carriers by treating them with intranasal mupirocin, an antimicrobial drug, and bathing with chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) soap, an

After finish with SIM test, we jumped to MR-VP Test which is a combination medium used for both Methyl Red (MR) and Vofes-Proskauer (VP). It’s a solution containing peptone, glucose, and phosphate buffer. MR Test is to detect organisms capable of performing a mixed acid fermentation, and VP Test was designed for organisms that are able to ferment glucose, then convert their acid products to acetoin and 2,3-butanediol. My result came out to be MR positive which was red color and VP negative due to no color changed.

Staphylococcus aureus - A normal flora organism on the skin surfaces of most healthy humans.