ABSTRACT
Background: Health personnel always carry and use mobile phone for communication; therefore, mobile phone may be the source and cause of Staphylococcus aureus contamination and endemic in the hospital.Objective: To study the prevalence of S. aureus contamination on the mobile phone of health personnel in Srinagarind hospital.Materials and Methods: Health personnel will be randomized by simple method; the outer surfaces of the mobile phone will be swabbed and cultured using Transferred Mannitol salt agar. Study design: Descriptive Study.Site of the study: Srinagarind Hospital.Population and sample: Two hundred twenty mobile phones of health personnel.Results: Sixty four of 220 samples (34.5%) of mobile phones were contaminated, thirty two samples (14.5%) were found to be S. aureus and 32 samples (14.5%) were not S. aureus. Methicillin sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) was found in seven sample (3.2%), however, there was no Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) found in this study. Eighty five (43.2%) personnel always clean their mobile phones using clean wet cloth or alcohol to wipe out their mobile phones. The risk of mobile phone contamination was 1.5 times higher in the no-cleaning mobile phone than the cleaning one. Conclusion: There was 14.5% prevalence of S. aureus contamination on the health personnel’s mobile phone at Srinagarind hospital. To clean and wipe out the mobile phone will reduce the chance of this contamination. Keywords: Staphylococcus aureus, mobile phones, health personnel, contamination, mehticilin resistant / sensitive
ABSTRACT
The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) and susceptibility patterns of Candida species isolated from sterile sites of patients in Srinagarind Hospital were determined. The 46 isolates of Candida spp. compose of 24 isolates of Candida albicans, 9 isolates of Candida tropicalis, 5 isolates of Candida parapsilosis, 5 isolates of Candida glabrata; 2 isolates of Candida spp. and 1 isolate of C. krusei. All isolates were tested for MIC determination against 7 antifungal agents; amphotericin B, fluconazole, itraconazole, ketoconazole, flucytosine, voriconazole and caspofungin by Sensititre YeastOne colorimetric antifungal panel. All C. albicans isolates were susceptible to fluconazole, flucytosine and voriconazole whereas 96 % of them were susceptible to itraconazole. Similar results occurred when tested with other Candida spp. All of Candida spp. isolates were susceptible to voriconazole. Susceptibility to fluconazole, flucytosine and itraconazole were 77%, 91% and 55% respectively. MIC50 and MIC90 of C. albicans against amphotericin B were the same concentration at 0.5 mg/ml, fluconazole were 0.25 and 0.5 mg/ml, itraconazole were 0.032 and 0.064 mg/ml, ketoconazole were the same level at \< 0.008 mg/ml; flucytosine were 0.12 and 0.24 mg/ml; voriconazole were the same level at \< 0.008 mg/ml and caspofungin were the same concertration at 0.06 mg/ml. MIC50 and MIC90 of Candida spp. to amphotericin B were the same concentration at 0.5 mg/ml; fluconazole were 1 and 16 mg/ml respectively. The results showed that the first choice of antifungal agents was voriconazole because of 100 % susceptibility against both C. albicans and Candida spp. The second choices were flucytosine and fluconazole.
ABSTRACT
Staphylococcus aureus, a well-known human pathogen, causes a variety of infections in human, e.g. superficial skin infection through life-threatening infection. S. aureus is able to produce many enzymes, including exotoxins which lead to tissue inflammation and injury. Moreover, it also plays an importance role in clinical practice by exhibiting resistance phenotype to methicillin. Many virulence determinants are located on mobile genetic elements (MGEs), such as bacteriophages, pathogenicity islands (PAI), and genomic islands, and existed variably in the bacterial population. Then, virulence genes can be used as genetic markers for clinical manipulations, and nosocomial control measurement. The objective of this study was to determine virulence genes associated with those MGEs in S. aureus samples both in methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA), and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). A total of 100 MSSA and MRSA isolates (50 of each) were randomly selected from clinical samples of patients at Srinagarind Hospital during November, 2006 through June, 2007. All isolates were determined for the presence of eta, lukDE, lukSF-PV, tst-1, sak, sea, sec, sel, and sep genes by PCR. In case of MRSA, staphylococcal cassette chromosme mec (SCCmec) types were also determined in order to study the association among the determinants and their allotypes. The results showed that most of S. aureus samples harbored at least one virulence gene, and most of them carried lukDE (90 %), and sak (88 %). High potential virulence genes, eta and lukSF-PV, were detected in 2 and 10 isolates of MSSA only. However, sea gene was detected more frequent in MRSA than MSSA (P \< 0.05). While sec gene was significantly recognized less in MRSA than MSSA isolates (P \< 0.05). The other staphylococcal enterotoxins such as sec, sel and sep were detected in small samples of S. aureus, and none was found to harbor tst-1 gene. The molecular information associated to virulence genes on MGEs may be useful in clinical practice and hospital epidemiology in Srinagarind Hospital, and other tertiary care facilities.