Vancomycin resistant Staphylococcus aureus from Clinical Isolates in Benin City, Nigeria

Abstract

Multidrug resistant Staphylococcus aureus has increasingly been implicated as an agent of clinical infections worldwide. This study investigated the prevalence of Vancomycin resistant S. aureus (VRSA) among S. aureus causing infections in Benin City, Nigeria. A total of 400 non-repetitive S. aureus isolates were obtained from clinical specimens in the University of Benin Teaching Hospital. These isolates were identified by standard microbiological tests. Antimicrobial susceptibility tests and screening for vancomycin resistance (using phenotypic method) was carried out for all isolates. Eighteen isolates (4.5%) were resistant to vancomycin with 10 (2.5%) VRSA isolates recovered from females while 8(2.0%) were isolated from males (p = 0.9981). Isolates from catheter tip had the highest prevalence of VRSA (33.3%) and showed statistical significance in comparison with other clinical specimens (p = 0.0036). Vancomycin resistant S. aureus isolates showed poor susceptibility to commonly used antibacterial agents (< 50%). In order to mitigate the effect of selective pressure on the survival and proliferation of resistant strains, prudent use of vancomycin and other antimicrobial agents is advocated. The need for continuous surveillance, susceptibility testing and screening cannot be overemphasized.