Prevalence and antibiotic sensitivity profiles of Staphylococcus aureus nasal carriage among preclinical and clinical medical students in a Malaysian university

Abstract

Aims: Prevalence of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains in healthcare (HA-MRSA) and community (CA-MRSA) incurred costly morbidity and mortality. This study assessed the prevalence and antibiotic sensitivity profile of S. aureus and MRSA isolates from medical students. Methodology and results: A cross-sectional study of nasal swabs from 60 medical students yielded 93% positive S. aureus. In this study, erythromycin, fusidic acid, gentamicin, penicillin, vancomycin and methicillin were used. The most significant antibiotic sensitivity against S. aureus was fusidic acid (p-value = 0.0042). The S. aureus and MRSA isolates from clinical students were more resistant than those of preclinical students against erythromycin (44%; 15%), fusidic acid (33.3%; 10%), penicillin (85%; 86.9%), vancomycin (11.1%; -) and methicillin (19.4%; 15%) respectively while the isolates from preclinical students were more resistant than those of clinical students against gentamicin (5%; -). Conclusion, significance and impact of study: In this study, gender, age and duration of clinical exposure had no significant bearing on the prevalence of nasal S. aureus and MRSA respectively. No MRSA infections were detected in preclinical (15%) and clinical (19%) students positive for MRSA, suggesting that these students may be carriers of CAMRSA. A larger study will be implemented to provide baseline data for monitoring CA-MRSA infections, genotyping and constructing of phylogenetic tree.