Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in Meat Products, the Netherlands

A new methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) clone related to pig and cattle farming was detected in the Netherlands. We investigated the extent of S. aureus presence in meat and found 36 S. aureus strains in 79 samples. Two strains were MRSA; 1 was multilocus sequence type 398, the clone related to farming

National laboratory-based surveillance system for antimicrobial resistance: a successful tool to support the control of antimicrobial resistance in the Netherlands

An important cornerstone in the control of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a well-designed quantitative system for the surveillance of spread and temporal trends in AMR. Since 2008, the Dutch national AMR surveillance system, based on routine data from medical microbiological laboratories (MMLs), has developed into a successful tool to support the control of AMR in the Netherlands. It provides background information for policy making in public health and healthcare services, supports development of empirical antibiotic therapy guidelines and facilitates in-depth research. In addition, participation of the MMLs in the national AMR surveillance network has contributed to sharing of knowledge and quality improvement. A future improvement will be the implementation of a new semantic standard together with standardised data transfer, which will reduce errors in data handling and enable a more real-time surveillance. Furthermore, the

A multi-center blinded study on the efficiency of phenotypic screening methods to detect glycopeptide intermediately susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (GISA) and heterogeneous GISA (h-GISA).

BACKGROUNDS: To determine the true incidence of hGISA/GISA and its consequent clinical impact, methods must be defined that will reliably and reproducibly discriminate these resistant phenotypes from vancomycin susceptible S. aureus (VSSA). METHODS: This study assessed and compared the ability of eight Dutch laboratories under blinded conditions to discriminate VSSA from hGISA/GISA phenotypes and the intra- and inter-laboratory reproducibility of agar screening plates and the Etest method. A total of 25 blinded and unique strains (10 VSSA, 9 hGISA and 6 GISA) were categorized by the PAP-AUC method and PFGE typed to eliminate clonal duplication. All strains were deliberately added in quadruplets to evaluate intra-laboratory variability and reproducibility of the methods. Strains were tested using three agar screening methods, Brain Heart Infusion agar (BHI) + 6 microg/ml vancomycin, Mueller Hinton agar (MH) + 5 microg/ml vancomycin and MH + 5 microg/ml teicoplanin) and the Etest macromethod using a 2 McFarland inoculum. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The ability to detect the hGISA/GISA phenotypes varied significantly between methods and phenotypes. BHI vancomycin and MH vancomycin agar screens lacked the ability to detect hGISA. The MH teicoplanin agar screen was more sensitive but still inferior to Etest that had a sensitivity of 98.5% and 99.5%, for hGISA and GISA, respectively. Intra- and inter-laboratory reproducibility varied between methods with poorest performance seen with BHI vancomycin. CONCLUSION: This is the first multi-center blinded study to be undertaken evaluating various methods to detect GISA and hGISA. These data showed that the ability of clinical laboratories to detect GISA and hGISA varied considerably, and that screening plates with vancomycin have a poor performance in detecting hGISA

National laboratory-based surveillance system for antimicrobial resistance: a successful tool to support the control of antimicrobial resistance in the Netherlands

textabstractAn important cornerstone in the control of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a well-designed quantitative system for the surveillance of spread and temporal trends in AMR. Since 2008, the Dutch national AMR surveillance system, based on routine data from medical microbiological laboratories (MMLs), has developed into a successful tool to support the control of AMR in the Netherlands. It provides background information for policy making in public health and healthcare services, supports development of empirical antibiotic therapy guidelines and facilitates in-depth research. In addition, participation of the MMLs in the national AMR surveillance network has contributed to sharing of knowledge and quality improvement. A future improvement will be the implementation of a new semantic standard together with standardised data transfer, which will reduce errors in data handling and enable a more real-time surveillance. Furthermore, the scientific impact and the possibility of detecting outbreaks may be amplified by merging the AMR surveillance database with databases from selected pathogen-based surveillance programmes containing patient data and genotypic typing data