Staphylococcus aureus Raw sequence reads
Staphylococcus aureus colonises the nasal cavity of around 1 in 3 people. Despite medical advances, S. aureus infections remain a public health concern, especially among vulnerable Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) patients. Outbreaks of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) are well described in the NICU setting. Genomics has revolutionised the investigation of such outbreaks, however to date this has largely been in a retrospective fashion, and has typically relied on short-read platforms. To detect potential transmission events in a way that would permit early remedial action from our local Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) team, we established a simplified prospective genomic surveillance program in our laboratory using Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) sequencing. This data represents S. aureus genomes collected from Wellington Regional Hospital in 2023.