title: Carriage of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in children in Brazil.
abstract: The extent of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) carriage in Brazilian infants is largely unknown. We evaluated the presence of MRSA nasopharyngeal (NP) carriage in 686 children younger than 5 years with respiratory tract infection (609) and meningitis (77). S. aureus was isolated in 93 (13.5%) NP specimens of which 7 (1.02%) were identified as MRSA (oxacillin MIC, >256 microg/mL) harboring SCCmec type III. The dendrogram derived from the pulsed-field gel electrophoresis gel images showed that the MRSA strains diverged from the Brazilian endemic hospital-acquired clones from 10.4% to 21.7%. Although the MRSA strains were recovered from children within the first 6 h of their admission to hospital, the presence of SCCmec type III along with the multidrug-resistant profile of the isolates raises the hypotheses that these MRSA strains may have hospital origin and are now spreading into the pediatric community as colonizing pathogens.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Patologia Tropical e Saúde Pública, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia-Goiás 74605-050, Brazil.
authors.forename: Juliana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lamaro-Cardoso
authors.forename: Mariana
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Castanheira
authors.forename: Renato Mauricio
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: de Oliveira
authors.forename: Simonne Almeida
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: e Silva
authors.forename: Antonio Carlos Campos
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Pignatari
authors.forename: Rodrigo Elisandro
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Mendes
authors.forename: Fabiana Cristina
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: Pimenta
authors.forename: Ana Lúcia Sampaio Sgambatti
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Andrade
mesh_terms: D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D002353:Carrier State / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D016920:Meningitis, Bacterial / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology; D016106:Methicillin Resistance; D009305:Nasopharynx / Q000382:microbiology; D012141:Respiratory Tract Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology; D013203:Staphylococcal Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology; D013211:Staphylococcus aureus / Q000187:drug effects / Q000302:isolation & purification*