Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates is a serious public health problem whose ever-increasing rate is commensurate with the pressure it is exerting on the healthcare system. At present, more than 20% of clinical S. aureus isolates in German hospitals are methicillin resistant. Strategies from low-prevalence countries show that this development is not necessarily inevitable. In the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands, thanks to a rigorous prevention programme, MRSA prevalence has been kept at an acceptably low level (<1–3%). Central to these ‘search and destroy’ control strategies is an admission screening using several MRSA swabs taken from mucocutaneous colonisation sites of high-risk patients (‘MRSA surveillance’)
