The changing face of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections

Further success in controlling MRSA will require adapting our tactics to its shifting epidemiology

There is an ongoing global endeavour to reduce the incidence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections in health care settings. The major specific focus has been reducing MRSA transmission in hospitals, applying a combination of admission screening, isolation, and decolonisation, an approach allied to standard infection control precautions.1 In several countries this has significantly reduced the rate of serious MRSA infections, defined as the proportion of S. aureus bacteraemias that are methicillin-resistant; the United Kingdom, for example, has experienced an almost 90% reduction in MRSA bacteraemias over ten years.2 Similarly large reductions in MRSA rates have been reported in Australia.3,4