Search for: "Staphylococcus aureus" - 106 articles found

Photo

Article • Infection control

The strain typing technologies of tomorrow

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a non-profit hospital and medical research institution in Los Angeles, is setting new standards for quality and innovation in patient care by successfully introducing typing of Candida auris species – a procedure that could prove crucial in protecting patients from infection outbreaks caused by these microbes in healthcare settings.

Photo

Sponsored • Covid-19 management

Rapid and robust PCR testing for infectious diseases at Innklinikum Altötting and Mühldorf

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of the fast and accurate diagnosis of infectious diseases in clinical settings. Harald Maier discusses the implementation of rapid molecular diagnostics in the central clinical diagnostics laboratory at Innklinikum Altötting and Mühldorf, highlighting how the use of PCR testing has benefitted the hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Photo

News • Resistance mechanism discovered

How staphylococci protect themselves against antibiotics

The skin bacterium Staphylococcus aureus often develops antibiotic resistance. It can then cause infections that are difficult to treat. Researchers at the University of Bonn have uncovered an ingenious way in which a certain strain of Staphylococcus aureus protects itself against the important antibiotic vancomycin. The results have now been published in the journal Microbiology Spectrum.

Photo

Sponsored • Tools for the lab

Speeding up diagnostics to detect antibiotic resistance

Infectious disease diagnostics are notoriously slow. The gold standard for laboratory diagnosis of bacterial and fungal infection involves growing the pathogen from a clinical specimen – an overnight event, or even longer. The healthcare focus is on improving the use of antibiotics for better patient outcomes and reducing the environmental pressures that drive antibiotic resistance. To impact…

Photo

Article • Antibiotic resistance

Five-minute MRSA detection with aptasensor swabs

An international research team from Saudi Arabia, Germany, and Jordan has developed a novel pathogen aptasensor swab designed to qualitatively detect, within five minutes, any methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) contamination that remains in a hospital isolation room or other surface following standard decontamination and cleaning.

Photo

News • A new tool to combat superbugs

Defeating antibiotic resistant bacteria with 'molecular tweezers'

Antibiotic resistant bacteria are a looming super threat – heralding a time when our drugs will no longer be effective against prevalent infections. Hospitals are already coping with treatment-resistant bacterial infections. Cognizant of the threat and thinking outside the box, BGU scientists and German and American colleagues have developed a pair of 'molecular tweezers' to destroy the biofilm…

Photo

News • 'Ancientbiotics'

Medieval medicine against antibiotic resistance

Antibiotic resistance is an increasing battle for scientists to overcome, as more antimicrobials are urgently needed to treat biofilm-associated infections. However, scientists from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick say research into natural antimicrobials could provide candidates to fill the antibiotic discovery gap.

Photo

News • Teixobactin against superbugs

Researchers find 'resistance resistant' antibiotic

University of Melbourne researchers are finding ways to beat dangerous superbugs with ‘resistance resistant’ antibiotics, and it could help in the fight against coronavirus (COVID-19) complications. As bacteria evolve, they develop strategies that undermine antibiotics and morph into ‘superbugs’ that can resist most available treatments and cause potentially lethal infections. The…

Photo

News • Disarming MRSA

Potent antimicrobial to fight staph infections

Research led by scientists from McMaster University has yielded a potent antimicrobial that works against the toughest infectious disease strains. The find could be the beginning of developing new therapeutics to combat drug-resistant infections. The discovery is important as it is directly related to the development of Staphylococcus aureus diseases, known popularly as staph infections, which…

Photo

Article • Where are the infectiologists?

‘The hygiene plan is nothing but a fig leaf’

Nosocomial infections cause more deaths than traffic accidents – a stunning discovery made in a recent German study. Worse: infectious diseases long thought eradicated in Europe, such as measles, tuberculosis (TB) and, more recently, syphilis, are also implicated. The increasing number of patients places an additional financial burden on healthcare. But – and this might be the good news –…

Photo

News • MRSA & Co.

Test to detect antibiotic resistance in less than 45 minutes

Scientists from Scotland are developing a low cost, rapid diagnostic sensor test which aims to show the susceptibility of bacteria to antibiotics within 45 minutes. Laboratory testing of samples can take up to two days and the new test aims to allow doctors to be able to prescribe the correct antibiotic to a patient for an infection more quickly. In a research paper published in the journal…

Photo

Article • Combatting nosocomial infections

A&E Staphylococci POCT

Martin Möckel and Dorothee Riedlinger, from the Charité Medical University Berlin, Emergency and Acute Medicine Campus Virchow-Klinikum, and Campus Charité-Mitte report on POCT testing in the A&E Department to screen for Staphylococcus aureus colonisation of the nose or throat. People colonised with Staphylococci are at increased risk of developing a nosocomial, i.e. hospital acquired…

Photo

News • Pathogenic microbes

Cigarette smoke makes MRSA superbug bacterium more drug-resistant

Cigarette smoke can make MRSA bacterial strains more resistant to antibiotics, new research from the University of Bath has shown. In addition cigarette smoke exposure can make some strains of Staphylococcus aureus – a microbe present in 30-60% of the global population and responsible for many diseases, some fatal – more invasive and persistent, although the effect is not universal across all…

Photo

Article • Microbiology & hygiene

HAIs are one problem – MDROs another

In view of the increase of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDRO), the WHO has declared antibiotic resistance one of the biggest threats to global health. MDROs have become a major problem particularly in hospitals. Professor Dr Georg Häcker from the Institute for Microbiology and Hygiene at the University Hospital Freiburg, explains some strategies to prevent hospital-acquired infections (HAIs).

Photo

Article • Infection control

Knowledge is one thing - implementation another

Insufficient knowledge of infection control, resulting in insufficient compliance, increases the risk of hospital acquired infections (HAIs) and multiresistant pathogens that put patients at risk. At the 2019 Annual General Meeting of the German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology e.V. (DGHM) in Göttingen, Professor Frauke Mattner, Senior Consultant at the Institute of Hygiene, Kliniken der…

Photo

News • MRSA

Decolonization protocol can prevent dangerous infections

Antiseptic soap, mouthwash, and nose ointment after hospital discharge reduced infections and infection-associated hospitalizations due to MRSA in high-risk patients. Hospital patients who have methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can prevent future MRSA infections by following a standard bathing protocol after discharge. The Changing Lives by Eradicating Antibiotic Resistance, or…

Photo

Sponsored • Point-of-care

Improving the safety and quality of pediatric emergency care with POC ultrasound

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has become an important adjunct to clinical diagnosis and procedural guidance in the Pediatric Emergency Department (PED), supported by literature demonstrating that its use can improve patient safety and expedite life-saving care. POCUS further helps to reduce costs and children’s exposure to ionizing radiation. Not only is POCUS ideally suited for…

Photo

News • Research

Path to deadly sepsis varies by bacterial infection

Sepsis remains a common and deadly condition that occurs when the body reacts to an infection in the bloodstream. Scientists know little about the early stages of the condition; however, physicians must act fast. Every hour that passes without one or more of the few treatments available increases the risk of death.

Photo

News • Hospital hygiene

Will resistant bacteria be the end of alcohol hand sanitizers?

Alcohol-based hand sanitisers have been a mainstay in hospital hygiene for decades. But now, strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria show signs of overcoming these handwashing agents as well. Does this mean we should just stop sanitising our hands? Not so fast, say researchers from Melbourne – however, hospitals now need to re-think their strategies to protect their patients from deadly…

Photo

Article • Disinfection

Going for high-performance hospital hygiene

Room decontamination using hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) has proved to be a powerful solution for complete surface and final disinfection as well as outbreak management in modern hospital hygiene. Most final disinfections in hospitals are carried out using the scrub and wipe method, the specialist disinfection company Diop GmbH and Co. KG explains. ‘However,’ the firm adds, ‘this essential…

Photo

News • New data

WHO: High levels of antibiotic resistance found worldwide

WHO’s first release of surveillance data on antibiotic resistance reveals high levels of resistance to a number of serious bacterial infections in both high- and low-income countries. WHO’s new Global Antimicrobial Surveillance System (GLASS) reveals widespread occurrence of antibiotic resistance among 500 000 people with suspected bacterial infections across 22 countries.

Photo

Article • Infection - defect - regeneration

Challenges in septic bone surgery

Infections associated with osteosynthesis and prostheses are not to be underestimated: the infection rate is reported to be one to three percent after joint prosthetic surgery and five to 10 percent after osteosyntheses. ‘When you include later infections, the rate is twice as high,’ says Professor Andrej Trampuz, infectologist and Head of the Centre for Septic Surgery at the Centre of…

Photo

News • 'Mito-riboscins'

Scientists stumble across new method of making antibiotics

Cancer researchers in the UK may have stumbled across a solution to reverse antibiotic drug resistance and stop infections like MRSA. Experts warn we are decades behind in the race against superbugs having already exploited naturally occurring antibiotics, with the creation of new ones requiring time, money and ingenuity. But a team of scientists at the University of Salford say they may have…

Photo

News • Faster Throughput

Automation and the Future of Microbiology Laboratories

When it comes to automation, clinical microbiology has for many years lagged behind other laboratory disciplines. Robotics and computer processing revolutionized chemistry and hematology instruments decades ago. Meanwhile, clinical microbiologists continue to open specimen containers by hand and grow bacteria using methods familiar to microbiology’s founding fathers from the 19th century.

Photo

News • MRSA

Are door handles spreading drug-resistant bacteria around the world?

Airports are international travel hubs visited by large numbers of people. London Heathrow, for example, has an average of 205,400 travellers every day and saw 75 million people arriving and departing from all over the world in 2015. A study just published in the journal Clinical Microbiology and Infection suggest that international travellers can acquire antimicrobial-resistant bacteria and may…

Photo

News • Infection

Why does MRSA ‘superbug’ kill influenza patients?

Researchers have discovered that secondary infection with the Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacterium (or “superbug”) often kills influenza patients because the flu virus alters the antibacterial response of white blood cells, causing them to damage the patients’ lungs instead of destroying the bacterium. The study suggests that inhibiting this response may help treat…

News • Staphylococcus aureus

Women more likely to die within 30-days from bacterial blood infection

Clinicians around the world have long suspected that bacteraemia due to Staphylococcus aureus has a worse outcome in women compared to men, but direct evidence has been elusive. A study just published confirms that significantly more women than men diagnosed with Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (SAB) – a blood infection of the common bacteria – die within 30 days.

Photo

Article • Politics

Medics urged to organise refugee screening

Thousands upon thousands of humans have taken and are continuing to take flight from wars, persecution and economic stress, seeking the chance of survival in European and other countries. They arrive not only physically exhausted, but also in mourning for those killed in their own countries, or during hellish journeys – therefore many also suffer unimaginable mental traumas. Clearly they need…

Photo

News • MRSA

Breast cancer drug eats superbug

Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences have found that the breast cancer drug tamoxifen gives white blood cells a boost, better enabling them to respond to, ensnare and kill bacteria in laboratory experiments. Tamoxifen treatment in mice also enhances clearance of the antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogen…

Photo

News • Cleaning hospital rooms

UV rays cuts superbug transmission

In a hospital, what you can’t see could hurt you. Healthcare facilities continue to battle drug-resistant organisms such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) that loiter on surfaces even after patient rooms have been cleaned and can cause new, sometimes-deadly infections.

Photo

News • Ultraviolet

The supergerm-zapping robot helpers

Half a million square feet. More than 350 beds. And tomorrow, they clean it all over again. Every day, Environmental Services (EVS) staff members work to disinfect every surface in Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, playing a crucial behind-the-scenes role in preventing infections and keeping patients safe. Now, on top of scrubbing, spraying, mopping and wiping, they can add another action –…

Photo

New method to treat antibiotic resistant MRSA

MRSA is bad news. If you've never heard of it, here's what you need to know: It's pronounced MER-suh, it's a nasty bacterial infection and it can cause serious disease and death. Senior molecular biology major Jacob Hatch knows MRSA as the infection that took his dad's leg.

Photo

Article • Infections following joint-replacement surgeries

How to optimize prevention and therapy strategies

For all the advances being made in this discipline, postoperative infections remain a great challenge for orthopaedists and trauma surgeons. More than 7,000 experts from around the globe are gathering in Prague for the 16th EFORT Congress to consult on ways to optimise prevention and therapy for these dreaded complications.

Photo

News • ECCMID 2015

Curetis launches next-generation pneumonia application

Curetis AG, a developer of next-level molecular diagnostic solutions, announced the successful completion of the clinical and analytical CE performance evaluation of its next-generation Unyvero P55 Pneumonia Application. The upgraded cartridge will launch at the 25th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID, April 25 – 28, 2015 in Copenhagen, Denmark) and is…

Photo

News • New guidance

Contact precautions for hospital visitors

Leading infectious diseases experts have released new guidance for healthcare facilities looking to establish precautions for visitors of patients with infectious diseases. The guidance looks to reduce the potential for healthcare visitors in spreading dangerous bacteria within the healthcare facility and community. The recommendations are published online in Infection Control & Hospital…

News • Politics

Call for urgent action to improve CDI management

CDI Europe, the European Hospital and Healthcare Federation (HOPE) and MEP Karin Kadenbach hosted an event at the European Parliament to highlight the urgent action needed to address the current issues relating to the management of healthcare-acquired infections (HAIs) and Clostridium difficile infection (CDI).

Photo

Endogenous bacteria

Is chlorhexidine still the best decolonisation method? For many decades decolonisation – be it selective intestinal, oral or skin decolonisation – has been the accepted procedure to prevent infections by endogenous bacteria. Report: Brigitte Dinkloh

Photo

HAI present large economic burden for Ireland

Ahead of the Irish Infection Prevention Control Conference to be held in Portlaoise on 16 May 2014, Advanced Sterilization Products (ASP), a Division of Ethicon, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company, is calling on Irish healthcare practitioners to consider the significant economic burden of Healthcare Associated Infections (HAIs) on hospitals, the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the wider…

Photo

Controlling antimicrobial resistance

There is no other way: We need a comprehensive approach, with everyone living up to their responsibility to combat this serious health threat in their respective areas. The most basic instinct of every living organism is survival. What selects one organism or species over another, in fact, is its capacity to withstand any kind of adverse condition that comes its way – what scientist Herbert…

Photo

Nosocomial infections

As in so many European countries, nosocomial infections have hit the headlines in Germany over and over again in recent years – as when three premature babies died in a Bremen neonatal clinic in 2011.

Photo

MRSA cases doubled in five years

Infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) doubled at academic medical centers in the U.S. between 2003 and 2008, according to a report published in the August issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America.

Photo

A new MRSA test

Alere introduced its new PBP2a test, a rapid, lateralflow assay that detects the PBP2a protein found in MRSA directly from Staphylococcus aureus isolates. It is a costeffective, targeted approach to identifying MRSA, the firm points out. Providing results in five minutes, the assay uses samples from cultures (wound, skin, urine, etc.) and has builtin quality controls on every test strip.

Photo

A new strain of MRSA discovered

While researching bovine mastitis (an S. aureus infection that occurs in the cows’ udders), researchers led by Dr Mark Holmes at the University of Cambridge, UK, identified a new strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) which occurs both in human and dairy cow populations.

Photo

Plasma therapy: an alternative to antibiotics?

Cold plasma jets could be a safe, effective alternative to antibiotics to treat multi-drug resistant infections, says a study published this week in the January issue of the Journal of Medical Microbiology. The team of Russian and German researchers showed that a ten-minute treatment with low-temperature plasma was not only able to kill drug-resistant bacteria causing wound infections in rats but…

Photo

Superantigens could be behind several illnesses

Superantigens, the toxins produced by staphylococcus bacteria, are more complex than previously believed, reveals a team of researchers from the University of Gothenburg in an article published today in the scientific journal Nature Communications. Their discovery shows that the body’s immune system can cause more illnesses than realised.

Photo

Surgical site infections

Post-operative wound infection occurs after an estimated 17% of surgical operations – sometimes with devastating consequences for the patient. The list of preventive measures is manifold and long. However, one strategy is increasingly moving into the spotlight: the use of antibacterial coated sutures. Ethicon Products is at the cutting edge in this field. Sandra Rasche, head of this Business…

Photo

Article • Enzyme extended-spectrum beta-lactimase

ESBL: A greater danger than MRSA?

In hospitals, MRSA is considered Public Enemy Nr 1, and the increase in nosocomial infections, worldwide, has drawn universal attention to this ‘superbug’. However, Staphylococcus aureus is not alone – other pathogens are proving their resistance to antibiotics, in the last decade, gram-negative enterobacteria, which form the enzyme extended-spectrum beta-lactimases (ESBL), have joined the…

Photo

New weapons enter the un-ending war against MRSA

A decade ago the battle against hospital-acquired MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacterial strain) infections appeared to be lost, or at least without end. However, today, we see very important science-to-business achievements in this field. Report: Rostislav Kuklik

Photo

Pneumonia research in Spain

In November 2009 about 150 leading infectious disease researchers gathered in Berlin for the National Forum for Innovation in Medicine. During the meeting, Professor Antoni Torres MD (Hospital Clinic-Ciberes, University of Barcelona) gave Meike Lerner insights into community acquired pneumonia research projects and findings

Photo

A better way to take temperature

The temporal artery thermometer was developed in response to the clinical requirements for a truly non-invasive, accurate method of taking temperature. GE now offers, in Germany and Middle-East, the Exergen handheld temporal artery thermometer TAT 5000, which provides several benefits including accuracy, ease of use and cost effectiveness.

Photo

Nosocomial infections

According to ECD statistics for Europe, three million cases of nosocomial infections occur annually, and 50,000 are fatal. Evelina Tacconelli MD PhD (below) is Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases at the Università Cattolica Sacro Cuore in Rome, Italy. Her scientific focus is on epidemiology, clinical and therapeutic aspects of nosocomial infections and infection control policies aimed to…

Positive action in the war against MRSA

The first strain of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) was isolated in the 1960s, and its presence was reported worldwide in the late 1990s. A higher incidence of MRSA was noted in communities, at the dawn of the new millennium, leading to two basic MRSA strains being differentiated - CA-MRSA (community acquired MRSA) and HA-MRSA (healthcare associated MRSA). In clinical practice…

Photo

LightCycler MRSA Advanced Test cheats time

How the PCR-Test works The MRSA bacterium contains an additional 'mobile gene cassette' (SCCmec cassette) in its genetic makeup, which contains the so-called mecA gene. All beta-Lactam antibiotics such as Methicillin are therefore no longer effective. The LightCycler MRSA Advanced Test facilitates the detection of all five known SCCmec types within 85 to 100 minutes. This test principle is based…

Faster, More Affordable Test Being Developed for Improved MRSA Screening

A rapid, portable, point-of-care test for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), developed by TwistDx based on a new way of detecting DNA, was one of nine products chosen from approximately 250 applications submitted to the Smart Solutions for HCAI programme, an NHS project that aims to identify innovative technologies with the potential to fight hospital bugs.

Photo

Nosocomial and community MRSA infections

First emerging at the beginning of the '60s, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus as a nosocomial infection - healthcare associated MRSA (haMRSA) - has become an increasingly prevalent infection control problem in many countries.

Photo

Focus: hygiene and nosocomial infections

They are one of the major threats in today's hospital: tiny pathogens that hide out in catheters, in ventilation tubes, on instruments or on the keyboards of medical technological equipment only waiting to attack patients whose immune system is already weakened. This week, EH Online will take a closer look at nosocomial infections, their causes, their effects and the available ways and means to…

Nosocomial infections in the USA

As nosocomial, or healthcare-related infections (HAIs), continue to escalate in the US, and protocols to manage this problem remain complex and confusing, surveillance healthcare IT systems offer hope to gain control of the situation. These offer the potential for data to be uniformly collected, quantified, and assessed. How rapidly they will be implemented enough is unknown.

Photo

Infection source: water

That tap water carries pathogens such as legionella or pseudomonas aeruginosa is well known, writes Heidi Heinhold. However, new research results show that bacteria that were previously considered non-pathogenic, such as coagulase-negative staphylococci (CONS), can be present in hospital water and are transmitted by the water

Photo

Big focus on a tiny organism

The first of its kind in Europe, the €12 million BaSysBio (Bacillus Systems Biology) project, initiated in December, is headquartered in France, but involves 15 top European research organisations, as well as an Australian university.

Photo

New quick test for MRSA delivers results in just 5 hours

The methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is one of the most common causes of life threatening infections among hospital patients. What makes the bacterium that dangerous is the fact, that due to unspecific symptoms and long lasting testing procedures its detection takes too long. A new test that delivers results in just five hours now offers the possibility of a MRSA screening for…

Photo

An end to out-sourcing?

As MRSA affects about 300,000 patients and costs UK £1 billion annually, the country's public services union demands the return of in-house cleaners. Report: Peter Howieson

Subscribe to Newsletter