article · International Journal of Microbiology
A cross-sectional investigation assessed nasal carriage of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus among 379 healthcare workers across tertiary and regional hospitals in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Researchers collected nasal swabs and confirmed bacterial identities and drug resistance using standard microbiological tests and cefoxitin disk assays. Overall, 41.4 percent of participants carried Staphylococcus aureus, with methicillin-resistant strains identified in 15.6 percent of all screened workers. Colonisation rates were particularly high at Temeke regional hospital at 56.9 percent, Amana regional hospital at 37.5 percent, and among nursing staff at 45.5 percent. The resistant isolates also demonstrated substantial resistance to other common antibiotics, including kanamycin, gentamicin, ciprofloxacin, and trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole. The findings highlight significant carriage levels alongside multidrug resistance, indicating a clear need for routine staff screening, rapid laboratory notification, and stringent infection control protocols within regional healthcare facilities.
Healthcare workers carrying drug-resistant bacteria can unknowingly transmit severe infections to vulnerable patients in clinical environments. High colonisation rates alongside resistance to widely used antibiotics reduce therapeutic options and threaten patient safety. Identifying carriage patterns informs targeted infection prevention strategies, helping hospitals reduce pathogen transmission, protect vulnerable populations, and limit the broader community spread of difficult-to-treat bacterial strains.
The abstract does not indicate an application pathway, as it reports observational surveillance data rather than developing a commercial product or service. However, the identified demand for rapid reporting and routine staff screening points to a potential public health use case for cost-effective diagnostic screening tools and hospital infection control programmes, though this work remains descriptive baseline research.
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Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) among health care workers (HCWs) increases the risk of spreading the organism in hospital settings. A cross-sectional study was conducted between June and October 2016 among HCWs in tertiary and regional hospitals in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to determine the MRSA nasal carriage rate. Nasal swabs were collected from HCWs and cultured on mannitol salt agar. S. aureus was identified based on colonial morphology, Gram staining, catalase, coagulase, and DNase test results. MRSA was detected using the cefoxitin disk. Among 379 HCWs enrolled, 157/379 (41.4%) were colonized with S. aureus, of whom 59 (37.6%) were MRSA carriers giving an overall prevalence of 59/379 (15.6%). MRSA carriage was high among HCWs in Temeke (56.9%) and Amana (37.5%) regional hospitals. A high proportion of MRSA carriage was detected among nurses (35, 45.5%). MRSA isolates showed high resistance toward kanamycin (83.7%), gentamicin (83.1%), ciprofloxacin (71.2%), and trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole (46.8%) compared to methicillin-sensitive S. aureus isolates ( p≤0.001 ). In conclusion, we found a high nasal carriage of MRSA and resistance to commonly prescribed antimicrobial agents among HCWs. Implementation of infection control measures including contact precautions, urgent reporting of MRSA laboratory results, and routine MRSA screening of HCWs is highly needed to reduce MRSA spreading.
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DOI: 10.1155/2018/5058390
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